Fifty Shades Darker
(2017)
(SPOILERS) I suspect you could throw any director at this
material and still end up with results akin to watching erotic paint dry. As
such, Fifty Shades Darker’s woes
cannot fairly be laid at the door of James Foley (responsible for Glengarry Glen Ross, but also Who’s That Girl). You spend most of the
running time hoping for a murder to brighten things up, or for Paul Verhoeven
take over the reins and inject some crazy Dutch angles.
Fifty Shades may
have started out as Twilight fanfic,
but they stand as equals in offering audiences inert cinematic versions. For
every repetitive dialogue exchange in Darker,
there’s a cumulatively amorphous soundtrack interlude accompanying a montage of
sexy business between the S&M-lite lovers. Or, in the absence of sexy
business, just a cumulatively amorphous soundtrack interlude accompanying a montage
of whatever it may be (shopping, having dinner, take your pick). The only
relief comes from the inadvertent silliness of the plotting and… actually, no,
that’s about it.
Dakota Johnson was the highlight (I know, it’s relative) of
the first movie, but here, her sub-Melanie Griffith – appropriate, given that’s
Mumsie – submissively-reactive squeak quickly becomes tiresome. As for Jamie
Dornan, who seems to spend about 70% of the movie undoing his trousers, he
flourishes all the personality of a dried haddock, but at least the more
amusing moments revolve around him.
To encourage us into feeling some empathy for this extremely
messed-up multimillionaire, rather than leaping to the conclusion that Christian’s
a deranged sociopath leading poor Anastasia down a path of ruin, we’re invited
to engage with some of his backstory, explaining his quirky fixations and
fetishes. None of which really gives the greenlight to his penchant for depravity
(I know, consenting adults, or one consenting adult and another pressurised
into acts she wouldn’t otherwise entertain), but we do learn mom was a crack
whore (I don’t think that’s exactly the term used, but you get the idea) and
that Kimmy Basinger tutored him in the ways of unrighteousness (cashing in on
her dubious cachet from another tedious softcore romp, back in the mists of
time when Mickey Rourke could be sold on the basis of his face). There’s also an
“exciting” helicopter crash sequence where Christian goes all Harrison Ford at
the controls – albeit, he doesn’t look stoned – leading to an earnest “He has
to be okay” vigil.
Perhaps if Anastasia was “just a mousy little thing after his money”, or Christian looked
like Harvey Weinstein, there’d be more to be invested in here, but the
proceedings are so inoffensively titillation-free, it’s easy to zone out
completely. There’s a sub-Eyes Wide Shut
mask ball (as in, no hookers or illuminati present), Christian’s sex dungeon
(more of a boudoir; “Those are nipple
clamps”) and a fingering in a lift scene that’s only worth remarking upon
for mining zero of its comic potential.
Anastasia has a truly nasty boss called, wait for it, Mr Hyde
(Eric Johnson), involved in a subplot that inches uneasily towards drama, designed
as it is to throw Christian’s smoothly manipulative, controlling demeanour into
sharp relief, but is ultimately so ham-fisted that it comes across as merely inane.
Another features Bella Heathcote as one of Christian’s former submissives,
which actually threatens to become interesting in one scene, but then Ana is
asked to leave and we’re obliged to too.
These Fifty Shades
only rarely reach the level of actively bad, but that’s rather to their
detriment, as at least so-bad-it’s-good passes the time. They’re movies
seemingly designed for that tea break where you know you won’t miss anything
important, even if you’re out of the room for the majority of the running time.
Agree? Disagree? Mildly or vehemently? Let me know in the comments below.
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