Fifty Shades Longer

My family and I used to go on car-trips a lot when I was younger. My mom and dad up front, usually telling us to keep it down, and “Don’t make me pull this car over.” Not for very long at a time, only a night or two, or maybe the occasional week. Usually owing to the fact that my dad was an officer in the National Guard and he chose to take us along to several of the various training sites and meetings he was required to attend in his official capacity.  Those trips are remembered not because of any of the great destinations we visited, but for the seemingly endless car-rides. In my attempts to see all three Fifty Shades movies, I view Fifty Shades Darker as mountain I must cross, a trail I must follow to point B. Not because I’m opposed to kink or feminism or even fantasy love affairs. I fear it because I’ve tried to climb this mountain before and failed. I worked my way through Fifty Shades of Grey the Novel, with little effort and confidently picked up the second in the series, Fifty Shades Darker. I couldn’t do it, and now I’m relying on James Foley to tell me this part of the story before I go see Fifty Shades Freed on the big screen. That’s the end of the road here, but first we’ve got some things to work through.

The first movie, Fifty Shades of Grey, shows Anastasia Steele making bad decisions, choosing a life in a gilded cage only to balk at her decision toward the the end of movie. Fifty Shades of Grey being the prequel to Fifty Shades Darker, leaves “Darker” some shoes to fill definitely, if not very big. The first movie Grossed $40M and introduced Dakota Johnson to the world. Watching Anna nervously fidget, and second guess herself as a young lady was entertaining mostly because it’s all a trainwreck, but also because of Johnson’s glowing ability to portray a girl who doesn’t know what she wants. You know it’s going to go badly, you know she knows it’s going to go badly, but she continues to pursue this guy, even though everything is telling her not to. So it’s romantic in the fact that people are acting silly, and they can’t help it, because it’s matters of the heart, and people act strange when they’re in love.

Deciding to watch this movie was part of a package deal that I can only blame myself for. I suggested we (My GF and I) might enjoy watching the three Fifty Shades movies, watching the first two at home before going to see Fifty Shades Freed on the big screen. The second movie in a trilogy is in a hard place. The audience knows there’s more to the story after this one. So keeping the punches coming with some drama is a good idea, and Director James Foley gives it a good shot. Some might say that this movie lacks substance and decent source material, but this bold and sexy thriller will really get you going with high-brow lady-drama, helicopter crashes, and wedding proposals.

In my review of Fifty Shades of Grey I talked about how scenes with Christian were mostly monochrome and how scenes without Anna were the only ones with color in the first movie. Foley gives us more color and along with it more depth into Christians character. Dornan gets to emote a little more in this film, and it completely changes the character. Where in the first movie we got a cold calculated multi billionaire, now we have a much warmer person who is in tune with his feelings and eventually able to let Anna within his boundaries in lipstick so blatantly marked on his upper thorax.

All this boundary crossing is part of a give-and-take type relationship as the more Christian lets Anna bathe in the misery of his past, slowly showing her more of his sordid history, the more spanking and missionary-position banging can happen. After one of the sex-scenes Christian uses some lipstick and draws what looks like a midriff tee-shirt on himself indicating the limits of his affection, the places she can’t touch him, for Anna. And that’s not all . . .

It would seem Christian already has a few women in his life. Of them there is only one we haven't met before and that’s Leila, played by Bella Heathcoat. She’s gross and covered in dirt, and pops up after jump-scare setups. As if she’s a creature in a horror film. I suppose she is though. We find out that she used to be Christian’s sub', and that she is a husk of a woman now. He has her sent away to a mental institution, no doubt like the one in Sucker Punch. We also get a closer look at “Mrs. Robinson” AKA Elena Lincoln, played by Kim Basinger. Christian’s old dom’-dame who is hot on his heels even though Anna has told her to keep her distance.

During all this mama drama, Christian asks Annastasia for her hand in marriage. While she’s considering her options, her crazy billionaire, pilot, fiance gets in a helicopter crash! OH MY!  Everyone is totally worried about him, Anna is off her rocker crying, Christian’s Mom is barely able to stand, but it’s the second movie of three! I wasn’t worried at all about Christian. They didn’t kill him off. They couldn’t kill him off. I knew he was fine. So Anna says yes to marriage and a life of luxury with “Prince Christian.”

Now graduated, Anna has a job at SIP publishing, as an assistant to Jack Hyde, from whom she suffers sexual harassment. The scene becomes the most powerful of the film, as Jack Hyde fences her in, and blocks her exit, and moves closer and closer as we can only watch Anna’s disgust, shame, and fear in Johnson’s eyes, as her boss invades her comfort zone, and crosses all lines of professional and social trust. Luckily Anna has Christian, and Hyde ends up getting fired for misconduct. This scene is the diamond in the rough of this film as it’s expertly crafted by all involved.

The author uses this sexual harrasment scene to draw a very important line. A line between consensual sex, no matter how taboo, and non-consensual sex, no matter how slight. The “sex-scenes” in this movie are between Anna and Christian, who just spent a whole movie discussing lines they could cross, and ones they couldn’t. There scenes involve nudity, pain and punishment, things that could be considered “abuse”. While on the other hand Hyde hasn’t even seen her naked. Hyde doesn’t let Anna’s denial stop him. He persists past these lines and gets a knee in the crotch! We find out he gets fired and Christian, who respects Anna’s prerogative, gets the girl.

The team at SIP give newcomer, Anna, her bosses job, but only after throwing her to the wolves. It was clear from the movie that they knew he was doing heinous filth. The way that her fellow employee Hanna, played by Ashleigh Lathop, looks at Anna when Jack starts being “way too cool” to work for, and the fact that he’d been through three other women in the last quarter, but no one was like, “Well maybe Jack’s an asshole?” It turns out they all are! They let this virgin of a girl work for this perv of a guy, and didn’t even bother to let her know that “Hey he is gonna try to touch you.” “Anna, don’t stay late with him” “Anna, Jack’s got herpes” Nothing!

The consensual sex on the other hand is not BDSM porn. The silver balls in the pussy trick? Sounds fun on a dare. Shower curtain rod between the legs? On a tuesday. Stand around in the most expensive lingerie my worldwide network of assistants could find? Done. Anna’s Character has changed in that she now knows her power, and her power over Christian. She flaunts this in her scenes. She’s no longer the lost little fish, but a slightly bigger empowered fish fighting for ultimate control of Christian. Her struggles to grab his reigns out of the hands of the other women in his life have no effect on Anna’s and Christian’s connection through this movie. Christian is finding it less important to treat her like an ornery piece of lumber, and more like a person who he can’t stand to see in pain. Anna seems more open during the sex scenes, and even vocally chooses to be spanked and bound, pulling Christian closer to her, and away from his Stepmom, his past partners, and the painful memory of his Mother.

The change in director from Fifty Shades of Grey to Fifty Shades Darker is immediately evident with the cinematography, and the style of shooting, but the most evident would be that Jamie Dornan, perhaps because of new direction, seems to have grown a heart in the time off between movies. Christian being unrecognizable from the 2015 film to Fifty Shades Darker. It’s a good change, but makes it a challenge to connect the two stories, especially in back to back viewing, but any improvement over Dornan’s performance in Fifty Shades of Grey is an improvement.

Going through this movie knowing that there’s a third out there somehow feels like maybe we’re just waiting for what’s next. Like maybe we’re just sitting though this one because we wanna see what happens in the third one. As someone who quit reading Fifty Shades Darker after the 5th chapter, this movie brightens up the story and does a good job of getting us through a lot of nasty stuff that honestly we didn’t want to have to deal with. Now we can focus on the wedding and whatever is in the third book. It may have been a long dark scary trip, but we’re ready for Fifty Shades Freed.

“Are we there yet?”

“Just a little while longer!”

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