Fifty Shades of Grey
A few years ago I started hearing about an infamous, divisive novel that started out as Twilight fanfiction and had morphed into an insanely popular novel about a woman who was in a dominant/submissive relationship with a billionaire. People were very nonspecific as to their complaints, so this sounded like a potential convergence of several prejudices I have little patience for. Namely, dismissive attitudes toward “chick lit” (for which Twilight, for all its obvious unrelated problems, is an obvious lightning rod), and bigoted ones towards dominant/submissive relationships. Thus, I was determined to read this book for myself so I could better jump into these conversations like a human The More You Know star.
Lord, was I ever mistaken.
First of all, the book is atrociously poorly-written. The narrative voice is distractingly bad, exactly the kind of overly-earnest and repetitive prose you would expect from fanfiction. And while I understand that’s where the novel began, I guess I rather naively assumed it was cleaned up for publication. But on top of that, I was certainly not about to use this novel to jump into conversations in defense of the BDSM lifestyle.
The book (and, by extension, its film adaptation) conflates BDSM with emotional and physical abuse in ways that are seriously damaging both for people who might find themselves interested in BDSM and as probably the most popular representation of that community in a lot of people’s minds at this particular moment. And while there are plenty of calls to “give people more credit than that,” the insane popularity of the book/movie compared to the general ignorance (whether from prudishness or just genuine lack of knowledge) about dominant/submissive relationships make it difficult to do so. Basically, the book/movie wouldn’t really be a “problem” if it weren’t for the fact that a lot of mainstream audiences might actually think that this is a fair and accurate portrayal of how dominant/submissive relationships (or kink in general) actually work. And… oh my goodness, no. Just no.
By the time I saw the film, I was having flashbacks to the midnight showing of Twilight. I was with a group of friends who were much more enthusiastic about the books than I was (though, at the time, I felt much more positively about them than I do now). We were huddled in a small circle staring at each other in varying states ranging from incredulity to stupefied amusement. You’d think we had just survived some horrific accident, but really we had just seen a movie. And in the translation from book to movie, all of the book’s awkwardness, ugliness, everything about it that didn’t work was suddenly laid bare before our eyes. And I must confess, in the case of 50 Shades of Grey I found myself doing something I will rarely do with a movie: I found myself rooting for anyone who liked the book to have that exact experience. I’m not proud of it, but it seemed only fair. Surprisingly, the film disappointed me in that regard.
Unavoidably, the film has a lot of the same problems as the book. In fact, Christian being into BDSM being treated like a horror movie reveal is actually even more pronounced in the film than it is in the book. On the other hand, I do have to say that given what it had to work with, the film is actually much more successful as a film than the book was as a book. I know that isn’t a massive accomplishment or anything, but it’s actually pretty amazing how much of a difference just removing Anastasia Steele’s famously grating inner dialogue makes. For all its problems, the story is much less annoying when every third line isn’t “oh my” or something about Ana’s “inner goddess.” Actually, I can’t remember the words “inner goddess” being said once in the entire film. And whoever decided that deserves a medal.
I don’t want to praise this film too much, but for what she had to work with, writer Kelly Marcel and director Sam Taylor-Johnson actually did a fantastic job. Danny Elfman’s score was noticeably good. Jamie Dornan was about as good as anyone was going to be able to be as Worst Dominant Ever nominee Christian Grey, but the real surprise for me was Dakota Johnson as Anastasia Steele. She actually probably comes out of this thing looking great, and I’m sure there will be a lot of “great actress stuck in a lousy movie” articles written about her in the days and weeks to come.
I’m not going to argue that this is a great movie, but it’s a damn sight better than the book. As long as you’re adult enough to not think this is what BDSM is “really like,” you have realistic expectations, and you just want a trashy romance movie with some bondage in it, you could actually probably do a lot worse. I can’t believe I’m saying that, but it’s honestly true.
Kingsman: The Secret Service
Of course, a lot of that good will evaporated when the second half of my double-feature reminded me of just how large the gulf was between Fifty Shades and an actual good movie.
On several occasions in this film, Agent Galahad (Colin Firth) and megalomaniac billionaire Richmond Valentine (Samuel L. Jackson) have discussions about spy movies. In the first of these, Valentine asks Galahad if he likes spy movies and Galahad replies that he likes older, “fun” spy movies but the newer ones are always so gritty and serious. Obviously this was more than a bit on-the-nose, but it really does nicely sum up what makes this move so immediately lovable.
Anyone who’s seen Vaughn’s films–particularly Stardust or X-Men: First Class–knows that the director’s main strength is his ability to combine an infectious fun-loving spirit with a sort of sweeping, propulsive momentum. The entire film ends up having a similar feeling to a really, really good training montage.
That style is pretty much perfectly married to the material here, as when pressed to describe the film to a friend what I came up with was “Sort of like when James Bond used to be fun, with Samuel L. Jackson as the bad guy and a bit of surprisingly blunt class warfare.” I thought Stardust was Vaughn’s masterpiece, and it still might be, but Kingsman honestly might give it a run for its money. It was that good. In fact, while this doesn’t mean as much in February as it will in a few months, it was pretty easily my favorite film of the (rather young) year so far. I’m not saying I don’t expect that to change, but it’s still nothing to sneeze at.
Please keep writing and directing movies, Matthew Vaughn. You’re really good at it. And while we’re at it, can we get a few more like you? We’ve had just about every version of Dark and Gritty we can possibly have at this point. We need more Matthew Vaughns.
Cinematic Justice 