Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan fail to sizzle as the lovers in Sam Taylor-Johnson’s much-anticipated screen version of E L James’s bestselling bonkbuster Fifty Shades of Grey.
Johnson (daughter of Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson) does a fine job of bringing virginal English Literature student Anastasia Steele to life but former Calvin Klein model Dornan is hopelessly miscast as kinky billionaire Christian Grey, lacking the suavity and danger to pull of his improbable character.
You will either buy into the story’s wilfully escapist, Beauty-and-the-Beast fantasy romance or you won’t, but when Christian sweeps the demure Anastasia off her feet and into his world of penthouse-and-helicopter luxury and sadomasochistic sex, what lies in store is two hours-plus of glossy tedium. His ‘Red Room of Pain’ may be well stocked with chains, whips and blindfolds, yet what goes on inside is surprisingly bland. Who knew transgressive sex could be so boring?
Fifty Shades of Grey is out now on Digital Download, and available from Monday 22nd June on DVD & Blu-ray from Universal Pictures.
Certificate 18. Runtime 120 mins. (Unseen edition runs 123 mins.) Director Sam Taylor-Johnson.
“Slick, sexy, entertaining, overblown…” An alternative view of Fifty Shades of Grey.
