Fifty Shades Darker review: The 10 most painful parts
If you watch Fifty Shades Darker and can muster even the briefest wide on or semi then I applaud you, for you are a greater being than I.
Also I realised that, by going to the cinema to watch this, I’d missed BBC’s Taboo, which, for all its lack of lighting, and Tom Hardy’s comical grunting and questionable notions on incest, is sexy as hell.
But wait! The film isn’t just bad because it’s boring and is as sexy as a used verruca plaster!
It’s also vaguely offensive to people who like BDSM and anyone who’s experienced mental illness, sexual assault or domestic abuse too!
Here’s the 10 most painful moments of Fifty Shades Darker ranked from niggling to utterly excruciating.
1. You only get to see Jamie Dornan from the female gaze once
There’s one scene and, yes, I will be making a gif of it, Jamie Dornan (sorry, Christian Grey) is doing topless pull-ups.
This scene is fine. I have no problem with this scene. Ana is watching him and his arms from the doorway.
Jamie Dornan doing near-naked gymnastics for 1 hour 58 minutes would be a much better watch plus have about as complex a plot as Fifty Shades Darker.
Although, having said that, there’s one of those God-awful pommel horses that will bring back horrifying flashbacks – the freezing school hall, the Airtex and pants, the puce-faced PE teacher screeching at you to jump, JUMP, when you could never jump – which takes the edge off.
2. The scene where Ana throws a drink in Kim Basinger’s face
One can only assume Kim Basinger was like ‘fine, I’ll be in your crap film because I need the cash to help pay off the mortgage but only for like five seconds and we’re only shooting that dumb-ass drink-throwing scene once.’
3. Ana and Christian are an incredibly boring couple
One theme of this film is supposedly Ana helping Christian leave his ‘kinky f***ery’ behind and become vanilla.
Fine. Good for you. Mix it up. Great.
But we’re not talking Waitrose Madagascan vanilla, or the Ben & Jerry’s they plug in this film.
No, this is the kind of vanilla you bought as a student, that comes in a box, that you can only bring yourself to eat by smothering in half a dish of chocolate sauce.
As a couple, Ana and Christian are that weirdly over-enthusiastic couple bounding over to you at a party, who you have to blind with your brightest fake smile before swiftly escaping ‘to make sure Lucy’s OK’ because you get the feeling they’re so bored of each other they’re always just a few drinks away from suggesting a threesome.
In fact, why did anyone invite them to this party in the first place? Or did they invite themselves because they couldn’t bear another evening in watching The Voice?
4. The proposal
I’m not going to go into the particulars, although they’re also as dumb as a box of hammers.
No, I’m talking about the wider plot.
After spending any length of time in the company of Ana and Christian, when they announce their proposal you’ll feel the same way you do when someone you never really liked from Uni but have been obliged to stay friends with announces their engagement on Facebook – ie disproportionately irritated at having to click the ‘like’ sign when you couldn’t give less of a s***.
5. The bit where Ana steals a promotion from her co-worker
Ana’s landed her ‘dream job’ in publishing as an editorial assistant but then, after about five minutes, becomes an editor.
The way she does this is by stepping over Hannah, her co-worker, who appears to have been in a similar position for longer and have more experience.
Did I mention that Christian bought the publishing company? That’s not weird or controlling at all, is it?
Ana gets a bit cross about this for 0.5 seconds but not cross enough to so much as glance at The Bookseller jobs section or anything.
Anyway, Hannah’s totally fine this, and Ana’s really great about it anyway, and charitably tells Hannah that, although she’s her boss now, she doesn’t have to make tea for her unless she’s already making it, which is really lovely.
6. The attempted sexual assault
You may be wondering how Anna gets this promotion (other than the fact her boyfriend just bought the publishing company).
It’s because of Anna’s boss – a Bad Man as opposed to Christian’s troubled but fundamentally Good Man.
The Bad Man tries to assault Anna. She knees him in the balls.
Sadly she does not go on to knee Christian ‘just happen to have a file on you detailing everything you do, everywhere you go and everyone you see’ Grey in the balls too.
Instead, OMG wow, isn’t it lucky her billionaire is there to save her and make her dress in clothes he’s bought and have a hair do he’s approved and communicate via a phone he’s bought and drink exactly the amount of alcohol he thinks is acceptable?
7. The treatment of mental health problems
Christian has a dangerous, ‘mad’ ex.
She’s your typical Hollywood ‘mad’ – you know – unwashed hair, bags under the eyes, dark clothes, doesn’t look like she’s been on a sun bed recently.
Apparently she previously went round to Christian’s and slit her wrists in front of the housekeeper.
But it’s all fine, because Christian can still get her to sit on command, like a poodle, and she ends up ‘getting the help she needs’ ie locked up and out of the way so she doesn’t spoil Ana and Christian’s lovely romance.
8. The treatment of abuse
Christian suffered childhood abuse and the film implies this is linked to his enthusiasm for BDSM. So there’s that.
9. The terrible, terrible oral sex
I mean at least he does go down on her. For about a second. A second in which she cums.
I’m prepared to suspend my disbelief up to a point – the billionaire/stalker, the bit with the helicopter, Kim Basinger getting involved with boring twit like him – but not to the point where I can believe any man can bring a woman to orgasm by kissing her once on the mons pubis.
Also, what’s with all the toe-pointing? Do other women point their toes when they’re having sex? Is it just me?
Or has Hollywood decided the cinema-going public are just not ready for the fat, ghastly sight that is the unpointed female human foot?
10. ‘Laters, baby’
Christian receives this text from Ana.
Not from Jay from The Inbetweeners.
From Ana.
Supposedly an actual woman.
An actual 20-something woman.
An actual 20-something women we’re supposed to relate to.
An actual 20-something woman we’re supposed to believe fancies a guy and is texting.
‘Laters, baby’. Not ‘later, baby,’ which would be bad enough.
No – ‘laterS, baby’.
That text is really all you need to know about the characters, script, direction and plot.
It sums up 50 Shades Darker pretty well.
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