Fifty Shades of My Opinion

Okay, so today I did it.  I went to see 50 Shades Of Grey.   Before I go on and all the fans of this unbelievable phenomenon attack me, no, I never read the books.  Well, I did download a sample on my kindle and  hated it so didn't go any further.  So I knew what it was supposed to be about, and my fellow hilarious friend, Mandy Nolan and I donned some disguises (because we have both been mouthing off about it and couldn't be seen going) and used her free tickets to see what all the fuss is all about.

I've heard people say it's bad, it's not sexy, it's boring, and also much more seriously, it portrays a seriously controlling, abusive relationship.  I would agree with all of those things, and there were certainly very disturbing aspects of the relationship that you wouldn't want young women to think were normal or even flattering,  and there have been some excellent pieces written on that subject.  This isn't one of those excellent pieces.

Now let's start with Christian Grey.  Who thinks up a character like that and what women would actually find this dude sexy or attractive?  He has some serious mummy issues which we learnt of in the scene where he opens up to Anastasia while she's asleep and talks of his crack addicted, prostitute mother.  Oh, of course she was.  And she burnt him with cigarettes.  How original, but honestly movie makeup people - get the number of cigarette burns right when the dude takes off his top.  Sometimes it was three, sometimes five and another time he looked like he had chicken pox!  I found every other male in the movie more sexy and interesting than our Mr Grey, from his driver, to her friend the photographer and even the bloke she worked with in the hardware store. Now there's a fella who could dig a hole, and I love a bloke who can dig a decent hole.  Mr Grey would pay someone sexier than himself to do it, and that's never cool.

I was distracted from the ever so compelling/virtually non existent story line by a number of things that really ruined it for me.  Firstly the lip biting.  Oh come on Anastasia!  We know it drove HIM crazy but after you've been chewing on that fleshy thing like it's a fucking lamb shank the whole movie, guess who else it drove crazy? I wanted to slap her for different reasons to Mr Grey! She is going to need some serious chap stick.

Another distraction was the key to Mr Grey's playroom.  Oh and  what a playroom it was.  All kinds of whips (he called them floggers but really he was the only flogger in that room), chains, ropes, harnesses, paddles and even the old peacock feather came out at one stage.  Geez I haven't seen one of those since the good old days of seventies porn. It was such an important room that he had to change out of his Armani suits into torn jeans and no shirt every time he went in there.  More like the WORK ROOM, am I right???  But I digress.  The key.  Oh my god.  I was worried for the whole movie that that key was going to be lost.  Who carries around a key, without a key ring, to a room so important that it needs to be locked in case someone mistakes it for the bathroom one time when you're having a dinner party, loose in their pocket?  Just loose!!  I was so worried he'd lose it and find the gorgeous driver strapped up in there with a My Little Pony Butt Plug that I found it hard to relax. 

My next distraction was about Anastasia.  No it wasn't her big bush of pubes, but isn't it nice to see some these days?  They really are a thing of the past.  I suspect in the next movie there will come a time when they just have to go because Mr Grey doesn't trust them, but it wasn't her pubes.  It was the fact that she doesn't seem to own one handbag.  Not once was she carrying a handbag.  Now every single woman in the western world carries a bag.  Giant ones, small ones, fancy ones, ugly ones.  Not this little deviant!  And miraculously she would pull her keys and her flip phone, which I'm guessing they wanted her to have to show how really "innocent" she was by not even know that smart phones existed, from the pockets of her seriously skinny jeans.  They were not in there.  There was nothing in those pockets.  It just made the movie unbelievable for me.  So disappointing.

Now to the sex.  There was a bit of slapping, and a bit of whipping and a lot of having her hands tied up and him pleasuring her, which I say more power to her, but the sex itself was very ordinary.  A lot of missionary position sex and a bit of doggy style.  Nothing kinky there.  I was expecting gimp masks, definitely a butt plug scene, and maybe even some pooing and weeing on each other.  Nothing.  Not even close.  They'd have a bit of tie up slap and tickle, do the deed then he'd go and tinkle the ivories on his grand piano in his ugly, boring house.  Mandy pointed out that "even with all that money he still had a fucken ugly camphor laurel slab coffee table".  There was one scene that really stands out in my mind, and I wish it was because I found it beautiful, or sexy, but no.  I nearly fell off my chair laughing.  He took her undies off and had a good long sniff of them. Really got his nose right in there like he was blowing out a nose full of snot.  Did I not get the memo?  Do women find men who want to sniff their undies sexy? None of my friends have ever told me they met a bloke and loved how he whiffed their knickers every time they got out of them. 

Between that and the loose key caper, I was gone.  Give me seventies porno any day, where the blokes don't have issues and they keep their keys nice and safe by hanging them off their belts, which are around their jeans and not being used to whip women. I'm all for whatever floats your boat, and if this is it for you, then great but for me it is a sinker.

I give 50 Shades of Grey one star and that's for the gorgeous sweeping shots of the Seattle skyline.  Oh how I love a skyline.