Movie Review: Fifty Shades Darker *small spoilers* First Impression
Starring Dakota Johnson, Jamie Dornan, Marcia Gay Harden, Kim Basinger, Eric Johnson, Rita Ora
In the sequel, we find Anastasia is newly single having broke things off with Grey. Realizing that Anastasia is the one for him, Christian pursues her to win her back. He starts off by purchasing her friend's six art pieces featuring Anastasia because he doesn't like others "gawking" at her. How romantic and debonair of him.
He obviously wins her back but with little effort. In the art gallery during Jose's show, Christian convinces her to have dinner with him to "talk." Let's make this clear though, she is only having dinner with him because she's hungry and they're just talking. You go girl! Put your foot down! I think I have just witnessed how this story is empowering to women. Oh wait, no I stand corrected. They don't make it too far from the gallery before they jump into a mini makeout session. My first thought was, "Wow so that empowering moment lasted a while. Way to put your foot down girlie."
So here is my beef with this film. First the trailers was very misleading. I've heard many fans voice their disappointment saying it didn't live up to the story but here's my disappointment. It's not with the actors at all. It is with the story. I said this about the first one as well. First of all if you watch the interviews with the cast members, one of them, I believe it was Jennifer Ehle who said that the story is so empowering to women. It took me 6 times of watching the first one to make any kind of logic out of the story but I saw no empowering to women moments. It holds even more true for the sequel. Ana says no to Christian a few times but doesn't stick to it. This is not a love story it's a lust story. This is why the story is so appealing.
Christian is a control freak who needs to be in charge at all times. This is evident with how he hovers over Ana. She, on the other hand, is at his will. She's like, "okay" whenever they have a fight or disagreement though I don't think they're really fights or disagreements. I feel that they are all compromises where Christian looks at her and she's putty in his hands. Where is the build up to this relationship? There wasn't one. There was little to no resistance to his charms in the first film.
The characters are flawed in the sense that they need to be more developed. The trials need to be more than a jealous "Mrs. Robinson" with pathetic threats of "let him go...he doesn't want you" yet we see her for about 2 minutes in each scene that she's in. There is no meat to this story whatsoever. I got no indication that Christian was falling in love with her. All I saw is a lust thirsty couple, if that's what they are, who's like well let's get married. I'm sorry through the whole movie we see Ana be a little freaky in the bedroom with Christian and that is love? I think this story is a danger to young people and yes I said a danger because it gives the wrong impression of what love is.
This is more like a guilty pleasure and of two people who don't know themselves at all. What disturbs me even more is how this is a Twilight fan fiction. This is the first draft of a story. Just because a story is popular on a fan fiction site does not mean that it should be a published story. You need to clean it up and really put something to it. I know what all you Fifty Shades fans are saying "But you didn't read the books, that's not fair." Here is the ironic part, the person that wrote the screenplay is the husband of E.L. James.
The story is flawed seriously, very flawed. If it wasn't, I wouldn't see a consistency in lack of conflict or broken plots. I feel like there were key pieces just strung together. It doesn't flow and again it is not due to the actors. The acting is great and they did the best they could with the material. I am so utterly disappointed. I hate to see a story with potential get lost in the mix because it is poorly written and underdeveloped. Obviously there is something to the story for me to feel any emotion from it even utter disappointment. Maybe if I watch it another 5 times I'll be able to make some sense of it.
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