50 Shades of Grey – My humble opinion

50 Shades of Opinions & Reservations…

Like the books, the media is all over the movie and so are the viewers, and the conservative non-viewers.

I made it through the first 2 chapters of the 1st book – 50 Shades of Grey – over a period of 3 weeks!  A mere 10 or so pages? I can’t recall, but the only pain I remember experiencing was the terrible writing, which actually turned me off from going any further. Nope, no curiosity left.

When the movie was released, I was still not curious.  I do enjoy the soundtrack however, and find Ellie Goulding’s ‘Love me like you do’ very romantic and beautiful.

Early last week, I went to a dinner and some of the girls mentioned they had watched the movie.  I expected them to get in to an uncomplimentary dialogue about it and how I should not bother wasting my time.  To my surprise they just smiled and said that it was quite nice, the lead  actors did a great job and it was definitely worth watching.  Few days later, another group of girls asked me to join them for the movie.  I hesitated as you can gather from my earlier post, I would rather catch up on sleep! Then I thought, why not?

So I braced myself for scenes I thought would be OTT, that I wouldn’t be able to watch them, and to be completely turned off as I was with the book.

Once again, to my surprise, I thought the movie was actually tastefully adapted and that Sam Taylor-Johnson – the director, brought a lot of dignity in to the characters – Christian Grey (HOT Jamie Dornan) and Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson) – and directed the script very well.  Christian Grey very clearly explains why ‘he was that way’ owing it to being orphaned at the age of 4 and then continuously being sexually abused by his mother’s friend at the age of 15.  But you don’t get the feeling of an obnoxious, power-hungry man who enjoys being the ‘dominant’ in an S & M relationship, instead, you see that he starts to feel uncomfortable in his own skin and he softens up when he is with Anastasia Steele.  Anastasia, a young and innocent virgin, curious and enamoured by this beautiful man, tries to take it as far as she can, in the process of discovering herself and experiencing all kinds of pleasures and found her limits after consenting to  being the ‘submissive’ and challenging Grey to ‘punish’ her.  She was aware of the shame she felt as a result and was able to draw the line.

As I said, I did not read the rest of the books, and hence, am naive myself as to where this is going, butI have to say, I was impressed with Anastasia’s journey in this first part and her strength to walk away.  I am also impressed at how Sam Taylor-Johnson created something nice from all the badly written smut and soft-porn described in the book.  Well done to all 3 – Taylor-Johnson, Dornan and Johnson for carrying this through so well.

Prior to watching the movie, I read some of the circulated letters written to daughters by the mothers who watched the film.  I totally agree that a woman should never feel ‘submissive’ in any way to anyone, especially in a sexual relationship. I wouldn’t encourage every girl to test the limits as far as Anastasia does in the book/movie.  I would like to think that it’s all good in fiction and fantasy, and that reality is a whole different game.

It is important that she (a woman) understands what it entails to be in such a relationship and that she first needs to love & respect herself before engaging in one.

 

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