My Fifty Shades of Grey review and adventure
The plan was to go to the Cordova Malco in Cordova, TN. I was going to meet a friend afterward to eat and catch up.
First, the film; it was not only changed, but things shown in many of the trailers on Youtube -- and there are dozens -- were edited out. In some ways you know more about the movie from the film clips, since parts of the clips are simply gone when you see the movie.
Poor Jamie Dornan had very little to work with. You could tell that he was trying hard, but they were obviously very focused on Anastasia (played by Dakota Johnson) since the story was told from her viewpoint. In fact, in the book, it was told in first person, so we were in her head the entire time.
He had to manage an American accent, which I thought he did reasonably well, but he is Irish and some of the reviews were brutal about his natural accent coming through. If you've seen him in interviews or watched him in the BBC series The Fall , you will see that his natural accent is very thick. Also, in the interviews, the reason he has that nasty looking beard is for the series. If you watch "The Fall", you know the guy can definitely act.
They did make Anastasia's (the protagonist) role much more likable. Maybe it was because we didn't know what thoughts were going through her head, but she was much less annoying.
As you would expect, the scenes were changed dramatically. They only had a two hour time frame to work with, afterall. Unfortunately, a couple of the scenes altered were critical to the development of their characters and relationship in the book. There is especially one scene that could have been filmed -- and needed to be filmed -- exactly as it played out in the book. They could have cut out one of the scenes from the BDSM room instead.
Overall, I enjoyed it, but it definitely wasn't Ana or Christian from the books. While I guess they did a good job of following the plot of the story, they didn't really capture the meat of the story. It's a shame because they could have easily done so. Since they didn't, if you hadn't read the books, it would have been very difficult to understand what the hell was going on and why.
Critics raved about the business meeting in his office where they talked about the contract. But the scene was actually two scenes in the book. One at a private dining room where she leaves and he sees her Beetle. Then enter a new car shortly thereafter. The main portion of the contract discussion was actually at her home. She was drinking and it was much more giggly and fun in the book. At the conference room she asks what a butt plug is and that's the sum total of her supposed innocence and humor about that scene.
In the book, they are going through the soft limits and there were many more blank stares and uncertainty as she tried to wrap her head around some of the terms. Especially when she asks -- in shock -- what anal eggs are, thinking they are real eggs. That would have been a much more fun scene in the movie.
The tension and heated debate over Mrs. Lincoln (the woman who raped Christian when he was 15 and introduced him into the lifestyle) was watered down to almost nothing.
Okay, to shorten this, Taylor's part is almost nonexistent. Ethan doesn't exist (at least in any scenes), Ray (Ana's dad) had his couple of scenes slimmed down to almost nothing. The casting of Christian's mother was completely opposite from the graceful and sensitive woman portrayed in the books. In fact, if they had cast the actress who played Christian's mom as Ana's mom and vice versa, it would have fit perfectly with the characters in the book.
So there you are. Very little drama in the movie. Seriously, if you hadn't read the books you would have been asking yourself, "wtf?!"
The drama was afterward when I was walking out to my car and realized I didn't have my Kindle in my hand. I had brought it with me to read while waiting for the movie to begin. They even got a flashlight and went into the theater to help me look for it. No go. So I emailed Amazon to ask them questions about my options if it wasn't found or found later if I had already replaced it. Instead of answering my questions, the person automatically unregistered my Kindle and removed it from my account. What?!
It is password locked, so I wasn't too worried. I was going to give them a chance to turn on the lights and see if the cleaning crew found it before doing something so drastic. And that's exactly what happened. I called them as soon as someone was there and they had my Kindle. So I called Amazon. They said once I had my Kindle they could go through the process of getting it registered again. But they couldn't do it before then. And of course, it would cost me.
I raised holy hell. I had not requested it to be unregistered and it was done without my permission. The person reviewed my email and their response and within a minute my Kindle was registered and back on my account with a huge apology from Amazon. My friend lives up the street from the theater, so she picked it up and I'll get it back Tues morning when I have my doctor appt in Memphis.
I was much more worried about my Kindle than happy about seeing the movie. And there it is.
This entry is also posted at http://pat-t.dreamwidth.org/811257.html with
comments.
First, the film; it was not only changed, but things shown in many of the trailers on Youtube -- and there are dozens -- were edited out. In some ways you know more about the movie from the film clips, since parts of the clips are simply gone when you see the movie.
Poor Jamie Dornan had very little to work with. You could tell that he was trying hard, but they were obviously very focused on Anastasia (played by Dakota Johnson) since the story was told from her viewpoint. In fact, in the book, it was told in first person, so we were in her head the entire time.
He had to manage an American accent, which I thought he did reasonably well, but he is Irish and some of the reviews were brutal about his natural accent coming through. If you've seen him in interviews or watched him in the BBC series The Fall , you will see that his natural accent is very thick. Also, in the interviews, the reason he has that nasty looking beard is for the series. If you watch "The Fall", you know the guy can definitely act.
They did make Anastasia's (the protagonist) role much more likable. Maybe it was because we didn't know what thoughts were going through her head, but she was much less annoying.
As you would expect, the scenes were changed dramatically. They only had a two hour time frame to work with, afterall. Unfortunately, a couple of the scenes altered were critical to the development of their characters and relationship in the book. There is especially one scene that could have been filmed -- and needed to be filmed -- exactly as it played out in the book. They could have cut out one of the scenes from the BDSM room instead.
Overall, I enjoyed it, but it definitely wasn't Ana or Christian from the books. While I guess they did a good job of following the plot of the story, they didn't really capture the meat of the story. It's a shame because they could have easily done so. Since they didn't, if you hadn't read the books, it would have been very difficult to understand what the hell was going on and why.
Critics raved about the business meeting in his office where they talked about the contract. But the scene was actually two scenes in the book. One at a private dining room where she leaves and he sees her Beetle. Then enter a new car shortly thereafter. The main portion of the contract discussion was actually at her home. She was drinking and it was much more giggly and fun in the book. At the conference room she asks what a butt plug is and that's the sum total of her supposed innocence and humor about that scene.
In the book, they are going through the soft limits and there were many more blank stares and uncertainty as she tried to wrap her head around some of the terms. Especially when she asks -- in shock -- what anal eggs are, thinking they are real eggs. That would have been a much more fun scene in the movie.
The tension and heated debate over Mrs. Lincoln (the woman who raped Christian when he was 15 and introduced him into the lifestyle) was watered down to almost nothing.
Okay, to shorten this, Taylor's part is almost nonexistent. Ethan doesn't exist (at least in any scenes), Ray (Ana's dad) had his couple of scenes slimmed down to almost nothing. The casting of Christian's mother was completely opposite from the graceful and sensitive woman portrayed in the books. In fact, if they had cast the actress who played Christian's mom as Ana's mom and vice versa, it would have fit perfectly with the characters in the book.
So there you are. Very little drama in the movie. Seriously, if you hadn't read the books you would have been asking yourself, "wtf?!"
The drama was afterward when I was walking out to my car and realized I didn't have my Kindle in my hand. I had brought it with me to read while waiting for the movie to begin. They even got a flashlight and went into the theater to help me look for it. No go. So I emailed Amazon to ask them questions about my options if it wasn't found or found later if I had already replaced it. Instead of answering my questions, the person automatically unregistered my Kindle and removed it from my account. What?!
It is password locked, so I wasn't too worried. I was going to give them a chance to turn on the lights and see if the cleaning crew found it before doing something so drastic. And that's exactly what happened. I called them as soon as someone was there and they had my Kindle. So I called Amazon. They said once I had my Kindle they could go through the process of getting it registered again. But they couldn't do it before then. And of course, it would cost me.
I raised holy hell. I had not requested it to be unregistered and it was done without my permission. The person reviewed my email and their response and within a minute my Kindle was registered and back on my account with a huge apology from Amazon. My friend lives up the street from the theater, so she picked it up and I'll get it back Tues morning when I have my doctor appt in Memphis.
I was much more worried about my Kindle than happy about seeing the movie. And there it is.
This entry is also posted at http://pat-t.dreamwidth.org/811257.html with
comments.