It’s disturbing to see the script’s wan attempts to convince us this is a mutual power relationship. In turn, she capitulates almost entirely to Christian’s controlling, and frankly stalkerish, ways – his interference in her work life (he buys the company and forbids her from taking a work trip to New York), her wardrobe (he buys her clothes and hires a hairstylist) and her finances (depositing money in her bank account against her wishes).
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He even ‘opens up’ about his crack-addict mother dying of an overdose when he was a child – a terse confession Anastasia thanks him for as though she’s been handed the keys to his heart. But here, Christian capitulates to romance almost immediately – diamonds, fireworks and flowers galore, not to mention much deep kissing and missionary-position sex, with only a sprinkling of handcuffs when Anastasia consents. The dance between the two of them as they negotiated this conflict provided the tension that fueled that story. Anastasia, a virgin brought up on Bronte and Austin, very much needed romance. ‘I don’t do romance,’ Christian declared in the first film. They’re from Christian, the man she broke up with at the first film’s conclusion, after he’d beaten her red and raw, and she’d decided she couldn’t handle his sadism. She goes to throw the flowers in the bin, but hesitates.
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She’s still the best thing in the film, bringing some grace and humanity to the cardboard character of Anastasia Steele, a young Seattle ingénue in love with an emotionally damaged billionaire bad boy, Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan).įifty Shades Darker begins with Anastasia receiving an extravagant bunch of white roses, and a note wishing her well on her first day at work as a publishing assistant. It’s a film groaning with wooden dialogue, senseless plot developments and unsexy sex scenes – the kind that will have you wondering how many times poor Dakota Johnson had to throw back her head and arch her back in simulated pleasure. But Fifty Shades Darker, written and directed by men this time (Niall Leonard, husband to E.L James, wrote the script, while James Foley directs), is a crude but coy disappointment. Having read the execrable ‘erotic’ S&M novel by E.L James on which it was based, I was pleasantly surprised by the sophistication and humour of the film Fifty Shades of Grey, directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson and written by Kelly Marcel.