Fifty Shades Of Nonsense (Movie Review)

Fifty Shades Of Nonsense (Movie Review)

How can anyone of good conscious write a review for a movie they haven't seen?  It's easy.  Pre-judging whether or not you want to see a movie is the EXACT reason they make movie trailers -- so you can review the movie before you see it and know whether or not the film is worth your precious time and hard-earned money. You still have, after all, the right to say no.  You vote with your dollar. 

The purpose of film reviews, as is the intention of this review, is to help you decide whether to see a film or not by giving you informed opinions, based on ration and reason, about an intellectualized art form that is visceral in nature and has only perceived value.  Movies are audio/visual representations of ideas. Not all movies are worthy of seeing.

I have not seen the movie "Fifty Shades of Grey", nor do I ever intend to in this lifetime, and for the reasons which I have outline here.  I have a strong emotional reaction to what little I know of the overtly-hyped film, enough to warn others as a kind of public service.  Of course, I'm for the discussion of ANY subject matter on film, encouraging openness at all costs, as long as it has a relevant point of view. So sexuality is not the objection whatsoever, as "sex" is supposedly the main plot point of this particular film.

I'm posing the following questions: what is that point then?  What's this movie REALLY about?  Grown adults can sometimes do "kinky" things and it's okay?  "Good girls" can sometimes do "bad" things and like it?  That's not a revelation about human sexuality or current social mores, not an arty rumination, not even good soft-porn gutter entertainment.  It's cheesy "sex sells" marketing that shouldn't get enlightened, self-respecting movie-goers into the theater.

"Sex" is, therefore, NOT a plot point in this film (moving the action forward) but a plot devise (again the hallmark of poor writing and film-making), the glittery front to cardboard character development and predictable action. The title alone is not inspired (it's the guy's name and he lives in between black-and-white morality in the gray areas and her name is Steele and he's going to break her down -- get it?).

Where have we seen this drivel before?  "Fifty Shades of Grey", like all current media, is a well-worn, thread-bare boy-meets-girl story-line that either makes sense or not and this one is a jumbled, pandering mess of throw-back concepts.  It's antiquated trash-talk Jacqueline Susann via snarky Jackie Collins, with "shocking, outsider relationships", Brokeback Mountain-style, combined with "The Devil Wears Prada" sensibilities in which a nauseating "innocent" (read that: dumb) woman is taught life lessons by espousing fashion tips (read that: sexual competitiveness between woman and the price they pay to know the "code of sexual acceptance" through Jimmy Choo shoes)..."Fifty Shades" is sexist, perhaps as anti-feminist, anti-woman, as a film could be without out-and-out saying the creators really don't like women at all. 

The "alleged sex" in "Fifty Shades..." withstanding, most of the remaining basic ideas are nonetheless dumb-founding.  Why would anyone at the success level of the bosses portrayed in "Prada" or "Grey" inexplicably hire someone who was so obviously ill-equipped, without talent, and moronic?  Does the author of the book and the film-makers think we're that stupid to believe -- even in the suspension of reality for a dopey movie -- this is normal, acceptable behavior?  Yep.  Fool me once -- your fault.  Fool me twice -- my fault.

Any hype about full-frontal MALE nudity?  Nope. Does the female lead turn the tables?  Nope. Does the woman have anything to offer, other than being a tool for the man's pleasure?  Nope, again. One way to tell this film is exploitative is to turn the lead roles around: what if a unfeeling woman boss treated her dim-bulb male underling as a sex object? Is that okay, too? Is that entertaining?

Here's an example:  The man and woman are in front of a door.  He says, "Behind this door is 'The Playroom'..." She responds with, "You mean, for your X-box?..."  Groan. Why do we have to tolerate the marginalization of women this way, a kind of childish black-face-like characterization? What year is this again -- not 1945, is it?

Is "Fifty Shades..." the new "romantic comedy"?  Is this how "straight man/woman" relationships are now being seen by film-makers?  Has society become so overly-accepting, so unhealthy, that the unseemly fringes don't seen that absurd or harmful? A more interesting dynamic would have been a worldly, insightful female boss who mentors a younger woman, including teaching her about sexuality, somewhere between parenting and partnering.  Perhaps then the film could have been a discussion about answering the question Freud posed, "What do women want?"

When the book the film was based on was a round-table discussion here in "The Hood", I read excerpts from the book and found it trite and wholly unconvincing, with the typical amateurish awkwardness of someone writing about something they don't know anything about and with the same dim-witted-ness as when someone writes something the writer thinks is "controversial".  The craft of writing is usually usurped by the provocative subject matter, the quality of the writing suffers. That's fine, except you can't contrive controversy and the film appears to being carrying on that lineage from the book.  "Viral" is organic, not promoted. Personal truth always wins out, like a beacon pointing the way. 

The writings of the Marquis de Sade are the real deal, lifting hard-core pornography into a poetic art form, from someone who understood populist ideology by being purposefully "on the down low" for The Ages.  De Sade's "naughty" was joyful, even when the subject matter was scatological in nature.  Make movies based on his works, I say.  "Fifty Shades..." is sick and perverted, not for the sex, but for what the sex represents -- the submission and degradation of woman by men and the narrow, dishonest way it presents people in general as stereotypes, not just these specific types as examples of the human condition.  Want to see true expression?  See the classic "120 Days of Salo" or countless sexually-liberating French films of the last forty years, most of them starring classy Catherine Deneuve.

Every still image from the set of the movie version of "Fifty Shades...", every article about the film in print, every trailer and TV commercial, the young woman looks and sounds vacuous as her mouth hangs open and her eyes widen and the guy seems like an emotionally-stunted sociopath.  This is Freud's much-discussed "female rape fantasy", prettied in an ugly way, presented as a "knight in shining armor" bullshit. This is worse than crude traditional pornography as it's being formatted as a "feature film", supposedly worthy of an "art status".  In reality, this film is cartoon-ish porn without real people having real sex, justifying the always-predictable male libido, while dehumanizing women's sexuality, and that male-dominated repression portrayed in the film is so pervasive, so part of daily life, so Hollywood-ized, a woman (as writer) is seemingly-unwittingly behind the socially-damaging story-line, siding with the Neanderthal men and being against her own kind. Behavior such as this is common among repressed people -- turning against your own kind as the fear, doubt, guilt and shame become anger which is then internalized, then projected out, making others responsible for the victim's pain. If this film doesn't do well in the box office, Hollywood will surely offer it as another example of how "women's films" don't make money.

The most damning thing about the film -- seen even in small clips -- is that it isn't fun.  It takes itself seriously in a melodramatic way, again, indicating that when a man is in charge of sex, it's all business, money-shot, and then move on, because, otherwise, a sense of humor is seen as castrating...

I am not suggesting we morally-high-road what kind of sex people should or shouldn't have or what kind of film to make.  I am suggesting we question the reasons why self-actualized, responsible, respectful people agree to have sex and why this movie isn't about that. I am suggesting that you have a choice to put something truly awful in your mind (at about $14 a pop)...or something which could encourage, inspire and up-lift that will help you understand the real world you do live in. Try reading Kinsey, for starters.

The author of the book and the makers of the "Fifty Shades of Grey" film want one thing -- your money -- and not to enlighten, educate or even entertain.  There are two more movies in the works based on the same series of novels, dependent on the success of the first film offering. A tragic waste, I say.

Shame on these film-makers and the author of that book.  Shame on us for supporting such crap.  If curiosity gets the best of you and you do pay money to see this horrid film, at least have sense enough to keep it to yourself, do not embarrass yourself by admitting it to anyone.  And, if for some reason, you are entertained by this film, perhaps you should take a long, hard look as to why.  Send Hollywood a loud-and-clear message by staying home or else, don't blame me if you go.  I tried to warn you.