It’s hard to be ignorant of the publishing phenomenon that is 50 Shades of Grey by E.L. James. The erotic trilogy became notorious for its numerous and often outrageous sex scenes. I have many female friends, and relatives, who read the series, and while not a one will admit to finding the series ostensibly “good,” they each read every book. In a way it reminds me of another popular yet critically maligned romantic series – Twilight. It should be no coincidence then that Grey began its early life as Twilight fan fiction. The movie adaptation was a hotly followed topic. After all, people argued, how could it possibly be rated R? How could you adapt it to the screen? With a female director (Sam Taylor-Johnson, wife to actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and a female screenwriter (Kelly Marcel) to steer the adaptation process, I figured I would at least get a sense of exactly what was so uncontrollably appealing about the series. For a film designed to be titillating and provocative, I came away wishing it had more action (of any sort) because the movie was just so freaking boring.

Anna (Dakota Johnson) subs for her sick roommate and gets to interview playboy billionaire Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan). He takes an interest in her innocence. And so he runs into her at the hardware store where she works, he fetches her after a drunken text on her part, and whisks her away to his luxurious Seattle high-rise. Before things can get frisky he has to share a secret. He’s a dominant looking the world over for women who are willing to submit to him and be his submissive. The world of sadomasochism is a new one for Anna, a 22-year-old on the verge of graduating college. However, she’s drawn to Christian and accepts his terms, and that’s when the sex gets taken to another level.

So much of the film is the drawn out flirtation between two characters that I found painfully uninteresting. Wasn’t this supposed to be the exciting and sexy story of risqué sex and overpowering urges? I’m by no means the target demographic but I felt unmoved by the onscreen sex because it was so sedate by Hollywood standards. I’ve seen more enthusiastic and engaging sex scenes skimming the channels of late-night cable TV. It certainly doesn’t even come close to rivaling some of the steamier sequences of films past, like 9 ½ Weeks, The Dreamers, Henry & June, Last Tango in Paris, The Piano, Risky Business, Sex and Lucia, Don’t Look Now, Y Tu Mama Tambien, Dangerous Liaisons, sex, lies, and videotape, Little Children, Mullholland Drive, and Secretary. For fans of romance with BDSM, please give 2002’s Secretary a chance since it is 500 shades superior to E.L. James.

I understand that most erotic TV series and films are readily designed for men, and 50 Shades was designed for women, and there are differences in approach and stimulation, but for a product that is famous for the degree of kink involved, I was sorely disappointed by the results. In short, the movie needs more kink. It plays out as an introductory guide to bondage and S&M. This aspect isn’t even explored until the very end. It’s too timid to really give in to the thrills of its premise and likewise the demand of its readership. There’s a lot of nudity, mostly from Johnson, but the sex scenes themselves are rather ordinary and sedate, all things considered. There are four of them in total for those curious readers wishing to keep track (I also tried keeping track of the times Anna bit her lower lip but lost count). The sex scenes are filled with plenty of moaning but not a one of them builds up to climax, a strange omission since we’re tracking Anna’s pleasures. I wasn’t expecting the graphic, and graphically drawn out, onscreen sex of Blue is the Warmest Color, but I was certainly expecting more after all the hubbub. In the end, a sexy movie is going to be known for its sexy scenes, which may or may not include sex (I feel like fans are going to be justifiably irked by the absence of full-frontal male nudity – come on, give the fans a bone here). 50 Shades of Grey is ironically far too tepid to register as much more than sub-soft core eroticism.

Then there are the characters, both of which are too one-dimensional, and also boring, to bring much interest. Cinema has always been interested in good-looking people getting it on, but unless there’s careful attention to plot and character, then you’re just recycling the same soft core setups. It is wholly transparent that James’ novel began as Twilight fan fiction because the couple occupies the same unhealthy relationship roles. The female lead is a stand-in for the audience/readers; she’s a mousey, shy, normal girl who gets swept away by a brooding and dangerous man who tells her he’s no good, insists she should not be with him, but cannot help himself falling for her because he sees her inner beauty. He’s more male chauvinist than complex character, and his obsession is less a sign of a tortured psyche and more, as displayed, a clear indication of a sexual predator. Anybody who requires his paramours to sign legal documents about what he can put inside them seems like somebody not worth knowing. He tracks her down across the country when she dares to see her mother because Anna didn’t ask his permission. Control freak or a budding sociopath? With a lack of tawdry sex scenes, the far majority of the film is Anna and Christian ramping up their almost endless sexual tension, which the movie will hit you over the head with. I didn’t feel a single thing between the two of them, partly because of how poorly written they are and also because of the lack of chemistry. We watch her bite her lip a thousand times. We watch her stammer. We watch him stare rather intently like a shark. The filmmakers are doing the work for us rather than allowing a romance to blossom organically. It’s cajoled and manipulated and feels inauthentic in every sense, even before the trip to the playroom begins.

There is one standout scene that is actually sexy, and apparently it’s quite different from the source material. As Anna and Christian go over his legal language for his submissive, they treat it as a business meeting with an arch sense of professionalism. It’s one of the few times Anna displays a spark of personality, as well as decision-making, as she goes line by line and says what she will and will not do. It’s played with a wry sense of humor but there’s also a sexy undercurrent throughout the scene, where these two adults are having fun with the preliminaries. If the rest of 50 Shades of Grey had this same sense of personality and fun, it might have worked as an engrossing erotic fantasy.

Johnson (Need For Speed) is an enjoyable screen presence even if there’s absolutely nothing interesting about her character. Anna is so absent a personality that it makes it easier for the story to present someone else doing all the work for her, pushing her, prodding her, giving her form. Johnson plays a lot of scenes for laughs, which work in a titter-generating way. I kept hearing Patricia Arquette’s voice whenever she spoke, but I may be alone in this unusual observation. Dornan (TV’s The Fall) on the other hand is terribly wooden. Again, he’s playing a rather terrible character with rather terrible dialogue, but it’s hard to feel any authentic sense of passion from the guy. It’s hard to say whether these actors are miscast or whether there could ever possibly be a suitable matching because of how lacking the simplistic characters are. They’re archetypes, and ones the movie has to keep persuading you are totally hot for one another.

So what is it that makes this property the would-be blockbuster that it is? The story arc has been done before for decades, going all the way back to Rudolph Valentino’s Son of the Sheik: the mysterious prince who comes and sweeps the princess off her feet to his exotic world of privilege. 50 Shades isn’t reinventing the wheel but it has struck a chord, and perhaps it’s the wish fulfillment angle, the introductory angle to a world of BDSM, or the plain Jane ordinary heroine that acts as a cipher for readership. The books are the books and the movie must be judged on its own account. I’m sure most of the series’ fans will be pleased one way or another, though I doubt many of them will find the movie an improvement over the book. Then again it does strip away James’ wretchedly torrid writing. If it wasn’t for the 100 million books sold worldwide, this movie wouldn’t be generating any of the hype it is, but is that the film’s fault? The hype machine unfairly builds expectations that will fail to be met, but then again it’s the over-saturated exposure that has ensured 50 Shades of being a Valentine’s weekend event for half the planet.

Surprisingly boring and rather tepid, 50 Shades of Grey feels too callow to be the provocative film experience it wants to be. It needs more of just about everything; more characterization, more organic coupling, more story, more romance, more kink. It is lacking in too many areas, though the production values are sleek, like it’s the most technically accomplished episode of Red Shoe Diaries. It’s a tedious story of the hazards and joys of giving up control, but I didn’t care about the characters. I need more than pretty people staring at each other for an hour while a breathy remix of a Beyonce song plays over the scene (to be fair that Beyonce remix is hot). The actors don’t connect together and the Christian character comes across as more of a monotone jerk than wounded bad boy. I’m sure 50 Shades has pushed millions into exploring aspects of their own sex lives they would not have felt comfortable exploring beforehand, and good for them. My friend Angie quipped that, if nothing else, the release of 50 Shades of Grey will cause a spike in battery sales for its opening weekend. It’s a shame then that the movie is too limp where it counts to be serviceable.

Nate’s Grade: C