Movie Review: Fifty Shades of Grey

Last week, I attended the special screening of Fifty Shades of Grey hosted by NBC’s The Today Show with my friend, Layne. You might remember Layne from this ModelFIT post or this post about grabbing coffee at Central Perk. We’ve bonded over sweat sessions and our pop culture addictions, so I knew she would be the perfect person to accompany me to this event.

The screening began at 7:30AM, so naturally we woke up at 4AM to arrive at the Ziegfeld Theater by 5AM. Good thing we did because the line already wrapped around the block! As if seeing Fifty Shades of Grey a week early wasn’t exciting enough, NBC brought a little more “happy” to our morning! We got to walk a ~~red~~ grey carpet lined with black and white movie posters from the film and bundles of red roses. At the end of the carpet, handsome men in grey suits lined the carpet with trays of bottles of Pellegrino and faux cocktails.

Once we were out of the tent and into the actual theater, we were met with even more surprises! There was a coffee, tea, and scone bar waiting to warm up our bellies. In addition to that, cute breakfast hors d’oeuvres such as breakfast cannolis and yogurt parfaits were being passed around. For guests that wanted the more traditional movie snacks at 6AM, there were complimentary bottles of water, Pepsi products, and bags of popcorn.

Even with all of the food and photo opportunities, Layne and I made it to our seats with plenty of time to spare! Around 7:15AM, The Today Show hosts, Savannah Guthrie, Carson Daly, and Natalie Morales came out to talk to the audience. One of my favorite moments from the morning was Carson telling the crowd that this reminded him of his TRL days except that all of the screaming fans are now grown-up with children. I’m old…

Finally, it was time for author E.L. James, Jamie Dornan, Dakota Johnson, and director Sam Taylor-Johnson to come out to be interviewed for a live segment on The Today Show before the screening. All Jamie Dornan (aka the real Mr. Christian Grey) had to do was ~~breathe~~ say one word with that dreamy Irish accent, and the room of 1,000 women went wild. Those shouts didn’t even compare to the noise that erupted when the opening credits began to roll…

Now on to the part you are actually reading this post for –

Everyone’s been asking my opinion on the movie, and I find that difficult to give because people enjoy the book for different reasons. Being the hopeless romantic that I am, I personally wasn’t a fan of the first book. I thought Ana was annoying and unsure of herself and that Christian was too controlling and manipulative. (I wasn’t won over by the trilogy until Chapter 13 of the second book, Fifty Shades Darker.) Having said that, I did enjoy the movie. It was entertaining, funny, and I love a good pop culture phenomenon!

If you’re looking for all of the popular raunchy scenes from the book, you aren’t going to find them in the movie. #sorryboutit Of course, some sexy time scenes made the cut, but I found that the movie makers only added the book’s details that needed to be shown and left out the rest. I think this is perfect – especially the ending. The movie ends exactly like the book does. While it’s great for setting up the second film, movie goers who haven’t read the books will probably be sorely disappointed (no pun intended). Having said that, the soundtrack alone is a reason worth seeing this film. Songs by Sia, Ellie Goulding, and the Queen B for two hours and six minutes?! It’s almost not even fair to the actors!

Lastly, with all the drama that surrounded the casting I have to give my two cents on Jamie and Dakota. I, too, was one of those ladies that wanted Matt Bomer or Ian Somerhalder to play Mr. Grey, but I quickly came to terms with the fact that well known actors just weren’t going to make the cut. It ended up being okay by me as I think Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson did a wonderful job portraying their characters. I’m excited to see how they do in the film adaptions of the books I actually did enjoy!

The only casting I’m not a fan of is Kate and Jose. Though she’s my age, Eloise Mumford (Kate) looks too old to play a college senior and Victor Rasuk (Jose) just seems too plain. Since this is Twilight fan fiction, I guess I was expecting a little more Taylor Lautner in that character, you know?