The Fifty Shades of Grey cover poster, featuring lead actor Jamie Dornan

Due to a release that followed months of anticipation, both amongst eager fans and predestined critics, resulting in a YouTube trailer which amassed 193 million views, I feel the general tone and direction (or lack thereof) of the film adaptation of Fifty Shades of Grey resulted in many minds being made up and reviews being written long before it ever reached our screens. Having had absolutely no desire to see the film myself, I have therefore pushed myself to be as unbiased as possible.

The fact the entire trilogy began as online Twilight fan fiction gives a very clear indication of the level we are on with this film. For anyone who is still unaware of the general plot, Anastasia Steele (Johnson) is the virginal and unassuming English Lit student (cue stereotype number one) who is sent to interview businessman Christian Grey (Dornan), and is immediately enchanted by his handsome and authoritative character. Her intrigue eventually leads her to sign a non-disclosure so she might uncover the secret of his infamous ‘playroom’ and fascination with BDSM. She is then presented with a contract, ultimately requiring her to be a kind of ‘sex-slave’ each weekend, as he has some insatiable need to play the dominant. In return she will, of course, benefit from his not inconsiderable wealth, which we witness throughout in the form of flashy helicopters and the subtle product placement in his garage full of Audis.

Honestly, I struggle to find much to say about this film. It’s not, as many critics would have you believe, so bad that it’s laughable or entertaining (much to my disappointment). Nor is it an interesting representation of BDSM relationships, role-play, or even misogyny for that matter. It’s all rather tame. It’s evident throughout that the film suffers due to its intended mass target audience: strictly the blockbuster, moneymaking mainstream. That means people who do not want to see anything unsightly– male genitals and realistically dirty sex scenes included. I feel like there’s a huge bandwagon that everyone has jumped on so that they can feel OK with themselves for being turned on by this huge erotic genre (BDSM), which many still term freakish or abnormal. Either that or they want to appear less frigid by joining in with their friends and feeling ‘scandalous’.

There are therefore limitations to the scandal that can be tolerated on the big screen, especially given the huge audience density in the highly conservative US, so that ultimately the Valentine’s Day release date is all too befitting, and the film consists of too many dull, dramatic scenes which suffer hugely from the constraints placed on the screenwriter by E. L James, resulting in truly painful dialogue. Really, really painful. It’s again in that strange, grey area (no pun intended), where it’s definitely bad, but not bad, cheesy, or obvious enough to be laughable. Dornan seems to be very constrained on screen, not engaging the audience with his ‘troubled’ character who takes to sad piano playing when he can’t sleep, and who’s masochist vices stem from a ‘Mrs Robinson’ type affair when he was just fifteen, and vague memories of a crack-addicted birth mother (of course he’s adopted). Given the ridiculousness of the character profile, you half expect another American Psycho. Sadly this is not what you get, and, incidentally, you’d do much better with another viewing of this or The Graduate before wasting two hours and the best part of a tenner.