Fifty Shades of Grey transcript
Season 1 · Episode 10. Generated automatically, so expect the odd misheard word.
Hello and welcome to the Worst Movie Podcast. I'm Ade
I'm Aaron and this is a podcast where we watch the worst movies ever made in search of a hidden gem and yes, we did sign this contract willingly.
We're both probably starting to regret it about now. Anyway, hope you enjoy this episode.
I just wanted to say before this episode starts that it contains discussions of sexual assault, rape, and other forms of sexual violence. So these topics may be distressing or triggering for some listeners, so listener discretion is advised.
This month we've started a new theme with November and sorry, I didn't have any like hints to it in the intro or, you know, costumes or props or anything like that, because this month's theme is naughty November. And I'm sure Aaron doesn't want to see me try to be naughty on camera.
for or not.
yeah, I should say, mom, if you're listening, feel free to skip this month. We're covering some of the steamiest movies that had the worst critical reviews. And, yeah, don't want to talk about these movies with mom. How about you?
Nope, definitely not.
To kick off Naughty November, we're going to cover 50 Shades of Grey. Came out in 2015 and starring Dakota Johnson, her second appearance on the podcast. I streamed this on Netflix. Before doing so, I texted my wife and said, hey, can I use your profile for this? ⁓
at the end of watching it. I not to step on verdict, but I click the thumbs down so Netflix wouldn't add it to the algorithm. And then I log into Netflix the next day. It was big, you know, full screen trying to get me to watch the sequel to this. So thanks Netflix algorithm. If you're not familiar with 50 shades of gray, we will post the trailer in the show notes so you can get a
idea of what it's about. This movie got 25 % on Rotten Tomatoes, 1.8 score on Letterbox. Aaron, were you surprised to know that this was rated poorly? Or did you know that before we picked this?
was surprised by how poorly it was rated based on how popular it seemed to be. Especially the books at the time, I remember them being everywhere. And I knew that they made a lot of money, the movies too. So I guess it's not.
Yeah.
I wasn't like completely surprised that it was really bad, but I was surprised at how bad it was. You?
Yeah.
Yeah, I was surprised. I didn't think the movie won any awards or Oscars or anything like that. I expected it to be, you know, kind of middling reviews or something. But the fact that I got like I knew there were two sequels that were released and that it did well in the box office. And so I figured it at least had good audience reviews and and I
Right.
would have expected middling critic reviews. I would say 25 % Rotten Tomatoes is maybe on the threshold of what we want to consider for this podcast. Do you think this movie should qualify for the worst movie podcast?
I think it definitely qualifies for this podcast and I think that the 25 % is probably bolstered by just rabid fans of the series in general.
You know, it's kind of like Troll 2 where there's this following that it has that kind of boosts its score in some ways. I think that that's probably true here that it's a worse movie than 25 % would seem to indicate.
Yeah.
Sure. Well, as we alluded to, it did a killer performance at the box office. It had a $40 million budget and the first movie, Fifty Shades, made $570 million in the box office and the total trilogy went on to make $1.3 billion total. So regardless of what critics think, people paid money to go see. Yeah.
Huge success.
to go see this in theaters and I don't know what residual streaming revenue came in or anything like that, but I'm sure it continues to bring money in for the creators. As you mentioned, this was based on a series of books. Did you happen to read the books? Did you know anything about the series before coming into this?
No, I kind of figured this was in the same vein as like those Fabio romance novels that you see at like the drugstore that I was never, I mean, that's not my jam. So no, I was not into the books.
Yeah.
Yeah,
yeah, not reading those on the beach or on the airplane.
No, not at all. I'm not much of a book reader in general, so this was not at the top of my list by any means to get read.
Yeah, I.
Yeah. So this isn't going to be one of the movies where you're to be like, well, actually the book was better than the film adaptation.
Definitely not. The books
might be better. I don't know. We need somebody to chime in.
I actually read that
critics were harsher on the books than the movie. read some reviews that basically said that the dialogue was better in the movie than in the books. And E.L. James is the author of the book series and she worked on the movie as well and had co-writing credits for the movie. And I think had a lot of
That's surprising to me.
power on set it sounds like. But I read several things that criticized her ability as an author, which I'm sure she's laughing all the way to the bank on that criticism.
I read that they had Patrick Marber come in to do character work for the script, and I don't know who Patrick Marber is, but I looked him up and he seems to be a pretty prolific and well-respected writer.
screenplays and theater and things like that and So maybe that's the difference between the dialogue in the movie versus the book that they they had a pro come in and touch it up,
Mm-hmm.
Well, a little bit more about the background of this movie. The books were super successful, sold 150 million copies, has the UK record for the fastest selling paperback of all time, which is crazy to think about how popular this was. for those that don't know, the genesis of the series was Twilight fan fiction.
so Yale James wrote, a series of some fan fiction called master of the universe. And, that turned into the 50 shades series and she published this originally online with the username snow queens ice dragon.
I don't think that I would ever want any of my online handles to become public like that. Yeah.
Yeah. ⁓
you don't want to share any of those with us right now. Snow King, fire dragon. ⁓ EL James said about the books, my midlife crisis writ large, all my fantasies in there and that's it. So, good for her.
Nope. Definitely not. How did you know?
I
don't think we all needed to know that, but...
Well, apparently
150 million people wanted to know that and paid money to find it. So you're just not the target audience.
I guess so.
That's very true.
Yeah. So more about the background. was a huge bidding war about the movie. Steven Soderbergh at one point was attached to direct, which would have been really interesting. ⁓ whole lot. Yeah. Could have been a cool adaptation. Lots of rumored stars were attached and for, both male, female leads, had a lot of controversy when it came out regarding.
I would have liked to have seen that.
Yeah.
The nudity and the sex, one of my favorite tidbits was that in Vietnam about 20 minutes were cut from the film, leaving zero sex scenes. I kind of wonder what that edit is like.
Yeah, it's gotta be weird.
Just all story.
Yeah, because
I feel like the sex scenes are as much a part of the storyline as any of the dialogue or plot.
Yeah. a vital tidbit that I, that I caught at, the time that it was in theaters, it was the fourth highest grossing R rated movie of all time, which is kind of crazy. ⁓ did really well.
Wow.
Nice.
let's talk a little bit about the story. We've been dancing around it. Do you want to give a quick kind of synopsis or overview of what this movie is about?
Sure. The synopsis is literature student Anastasia steals life changes forever when she meets handsome yet tormented billionaire Christian Grey. It basically starts where she's a student in college that she's interviewing this young billionaire for her friend really who was supposed to be doing the interview. And she's kind of this awkward naive young college girl meeting this very
intense young billionaire and they kind of kick it off and the what follows is kind of the push and pull back and forth of pursuing each other and the love story that that follows I guess there's not a ton of plot to this movie there's not a whole lot that really happens other than
Yeah.
Just seeing them kind of interact with each other. There's really not even that many side characters in this. There's a handful of friends and maybe some family thrown in, but it's really about the two of them kind of in their romance for sure.
their romance.
Yeah, one of the first questions I had is in one of the first opening scenes, she's going to interview Mr. Grey and drives to Seattle and to your point about her being this naive character, she's just like gets out and she's like looking around in the city and like, whoa, like has she never been in a city before? She lives in Portland, right?
Yeah, yeah, I was. Yeah, definitely. I've been to Portland. I don't know why she would be wowed by Seattle. Maybe it's just that it was this huge building that had his name on the side of it. So maybe that's what wowed her is like this is his empire.
I mean, they're skyscrapers in Portland, aren't they?
Ha ha ha.
I guess.
Why do think he took that interview?
I don't know. That doesn't make any sense. Also, when she walks in to interview him for the first time, she trips over nothing and falls like flat on her face right as she walks in. I'm like, what did she trip over? She's clumsy.
She's naive and awkward
and we're supposed to relate to her.
I guess so.
Yeah. so what did you think about the story over on the premise? I guess, like the idea that this clumsy college student is, is, ⁓ catches the eye of this billionaire, mysterious billionaire.
It's a fine premise. It's maybe not original, I guess. ⁓ But the premise is fine. The execution of said premise is pretty flat and there's nothing much really happens after that. And the characters aren't believable, I don't think. And this is a two hour movie of red flags.
Yeah.
for me. Like, Christian Grey is not a desirable partner in any way, other than he's handsome and rich.
Yeah.
Yeah, I, that kind of says something maybe about people's women's fantasies who are into this that, yeah, it seems like right off the bat, he, one of the first things I noted was he seems like a serial killer. ⁓ he's just so mysterious. and like she says something like, find you intimidating. I think that was in their first conversation and he.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
replies, you should, which yeah, that, I mean, that would make me scared of you even more. And that would throw up some red flags. one of the first scenes, she works at a hardware store and he shows up and he buys like cable ties and tape. And what else does he buy?
Yeah.
Tape.
Capel ties, masking tape, and rope.
Yeah. And she keeps trying to ask him what project he's working on and he will not answer. Yeah. He's very cryptic. He says something in their first meeting. Like she asks if he works out or is, I forget the question. And he's like, I engage in certain physical activities or it was like the sort of thing that I'd be like, you kill people, right?
is super dodgy.
Yeah.
Yeah, he I can clearly see that Dennis from Always Sunny in Philadelphia has a lot of Christian Grey in him. He's just this intense guy with serial killer eyes and he's buying tools from the hardware store that include rope and tape and cable ties. Yeah, that's my that would be my first red flag to get the fuck out. ⁓
Hahaha, yeah.
Ha ha ha.
He won't answer a question straight and ⁓ he seems to be a murderer.
Yeah, he's very controlling from the start. He flips out when he learns that she's drunk at a bar and shows up to take her away.
Yeah.
Yeah, like he flies to another state or something to go get her from the bar after they've met once, I think.
Yeah.
Basically, maybe they, maybe they met twice because, she, they have a coffee date. It's after the coffee date because at the coffee date, he is, I guess, trying to woo her. I really don't understand his, his game here, but, then she said something about being a hopeless romantic and he's like, we can't be together and essentially dumps her before they're ever together.
Yeah.
and then
she gets drunk because she's upset about it.
don't know why she's already so attached to him. He's been nothing but a creep thus far. And she's really just interacted with him. I think he said he had like five or 10 minutes for their first interview and that was it. it was nothing happened there that I'd be like, this is a guy that I gotta get with. ⁓ And then she, that's true. That's true.
Yeah, but he's...
Yeah.
Yeah, but you are a dude.
Yeah, I was wondering, does this kind of flirting work? Is this what women want?
Did it give you an identity crisis? You've been doing it wrong this whole time.
No, I mean, I've
been in a very long term relationship for a while and Maybe this is the way people are doing it now, I don't know. ⁓ But it is... It was all red flags to me. I would creep myself out if I acted like him.
Yeah.
Yeah, what?
Well, somewhat related. One of the questions I had was, what would life be like if you were that hot? Like, it's just completely different.
I guess you can get away with this.
Yeah, I mean, he is attractive and fit and wealthy and I don't know, maybe you get away with a lot more.
You don't even have to try to pretend to be a normal human being.
Yeah, you could just be a robot.
I should say I saw a lot of criticism about Jamie Dornan who plays Christian Grey in this. mostly the criticism is that he's really stilted and all these attributes that we're talking about. I really liked him in the TV show The Fall where he does play a serial killer.
And so maybe some of my serial killer bias maybe came from that's where I primarily know him from. I was like, he's playing the character that he played in the fall. I actually think it kind of works for this movie because the character does seem really troubled.
He's got a tape.
Yeah. Yeah, I didn't have a problem with his portrayal necessarily. I don't think I mean, I guess we're going to talk about the acting. I didn't think he was that bad. I don't I do not like Dakota Johnson. This is so this is her second appearance on the podcast, and it's maybe the only two times that I've seen her. I mean, I've seen her in like 21 Jump Street and Social Network, but she's not a big character and I don't remember her so.
Yeah.
⁓
I have no frame of reference, but the two movies I've seen her in, she doesn't seem to have any chemistry with anybody else in the movie. And she's just wooden and flat and uninteresting. And he was fine. Like he seemed like he could act if he wanted to. I think the source material was the issue for his character. But they tried
to flesh her character out a lot more than they tried to flesh his character out. And she wasn't really capable of making a likable, believable character, I didn't think.
Yeah, I thought she did better than she did in Madame Web. Madame Web, I remember her just seeming flat and bored through the whole thing. And again, when we talked about on that episode, a lot of the background that came out was that she had trouble with the movie and didn't really want to be part of the project anymore, it seemed like. And so kind of phoned it in. And there are parts of this movie where I thought she
Mm-hmm.
tried and she had, she seemed emotive and expressive and I think did a better job. I wouldn't give her an Oscar or anything like that, but I didn't have as much of a problem with her performance here.
Interesting.
But some of it is the story because I feel like both characters were kind of reserved
She was, she was naive and also didn't really understand why Christian wanted to do the things that he wanted to do. And his character seemed troubled. and I actually felt like there was more backstory hinted with him or even expressly talked about than with her. Like, I really didn't understand who she was other than a student who was graduating.
and a virgin. Like we really didn't get much. Her dad and mom split when she was young. Is that right? And her mom had a series of husbands, but it didn't really say anything about her backstory in terms of like her relationships or what was motivating her. Like we didn't even really get a sense of what she wanted to do after college or what she was into.
Yeah.
Mm Yeah.
Yeah,
right. Yes. Yeah, we get we get more of her like current social life than we get of his. we see like her out at the bar with her friend, Jose and her her roommate. And so we get a little bit more of her life outside of of Christian. Whereas with Christian, we get lots of. Backstory with him about he was apparently.
She worked at a hardware store and that was it.
raped by an older woman as a kid. He was 15 and she was in her 30s or something. so he's, he's got some history that has kind of shaped him who he is now. So yeah, there was, there was kind of some of that backstory with him that I guess explains a little bit of the why he is the way he is. But did you see that Christian's mother,
Yeah.
Christian said that his mother has never seen him with a woman before.
I didn't catch that.
Yeah, because his mom comes to visit him at his apartment and Anastasia is there and she's like kind of surprised to see him there. And Christian, as the mom has left, Christian says, she's never seen me with a woman before. Like, how is that possible? And there's this whole plot point that
He's never been photographed with a woman. Like all of the pictures of him are either with men or alone online. like, what is this guy doing? This is a serial killer. ⁓
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, that's, that's a big part of the plot point where his first sexual experiences when he's 15, as you mentioned, and was raped by an older woman and she was a dominatrix and he was her submissive. And basically that formed his sexual preferences and relationships going forward. So he's, he says in the movie.
to Anastasia. He's never slept in the same bed as a woman. He doesn't do relationships is what he says over and over. He doesn't go on dates. He doesn't do dinners and movies and stuff like that, which is weird. I'm sure those people exist, but to like never have gone to dinner with a woman. ⁓ But he has basically set up these, know, dumb sub relationships since he was
Yeah.
15 or at least since him and that woman stopped seeing each other.
And he makes all of these women sign a non-disclosure agreement that they won't discuss what they do together. I could maybe see that being a thing though with extremely wealthy or famous people that I don't know. I mean, yeah, I'm sure that it happens, but it's still for a regular person, that would be a big red flag.
Yeah.
Which speaking of red flags, that's a huge one.
Yeah.
I'm sure it happens, but.
out.
Sure. Yeah. Yeah. You don't
want some, some broke ass dude on, on your first date sliding over an NDA. Yeah. That's the funny thing about it is I don't really understand how soon in the relationship do you want that NDA sign? Because they basically don't even date before he starts sending her all sorts of legal stuff.
Yeah, but she doesn't ever sign anything as far as I know in this movie.
I think she signs
the NDA, but not the submissive contract.
okay, that could be.
Maybe
I could have missed that. I mean, I write down a note. Is this the most popular movie where a significant chunk of the movie is reading a legal contract out loud? I bet lawyers really geeked out on this because they spend a lot of time going through legalese.
Yeah, and they, and they like talk about negotiations in their relationship a lot. ⁓
Yeah, there's
a whole scene where they are sitting across from each other at a boardroom table and go ahead and redlining the contract, which I don't know that I've ever seen that in a movie. I, you know, I've never read a Dom's contract, but the legalese for the most part seems legit that they're going through.
Yeah.
Yeah, it was supposed to be a very sexual, sexy contract negotiation.
I mean, it was, I thought it was a little cheesy, but it probably is the most sexy contract negotiation I can remember on film.
Yeah, same.
we've talked about him being a Dom, but, one of the funniest parts in the movie is he takes her to his apartment for the first time and he's being cryptic this whole, like the first 30 minutes, would you say?
He's being cryptic about what he's into. Like we don't really get to see the, you know, see it until well into the movie and they're standing in front of a door and he says, this is my game room and my, yes, my play room. And she looks at him and says, like your X-Box and stuff. I laughed out loud. ⁓ yeah.
my playroom.
I too. That's what I would
assume. If somebody took me to their apartment and they're like, this is my playroom, I wouldn't be like, ⁓ I'm going to get tied up and beaten in there.
Yeah.
And I just felt like, I don't know, I'm obviously not a woman. I haven't dated in a long time, but I felt like in her delivery of that line is like every poor woman who's ever dated a guy who's who like spent a bunch of time on a date playing on his Xbox or something.
Yeah.
She was just like, there's just all this dread of like, are you going to like, maybe watch you play Halo or something?
Yeah.
He's got a game with the boys tonight.
Yeah, yeah, she can hang around if she wants. Maybe make some food for him.
Yeah.
Yeah, I don't know. If you were rewriting this, how would you fix it, do think?
I don't know that I can pretend to be a good enough writer to, I mean, look, this is stepping on analysis, but this is one of those movies where I'm like, how can I criticize it? It made a shit ton of movie. People love the books. People love the movie. I don't know. Maybe it shouldn't be fixed. How would you fix it?
Yeah,
I thought about it and I think that this movie is exactly what it was supposed to be. It was never going to be like a critical darling, that it's just supposed to satisfy some need for women and it's not for me. Like that was never intended to be for me. So in that way, I don't think it needs fixing. And I think that the box office numbers kind of speak for themselves that this is what a lot of people wanted.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. I have more thoughts when we get into analysis about it, but yeah, I, this is not the movie for me. It's not, not my genre. It's not my style, but yeah, it seemed like it was, it's a fantasy movie, obviously. And, ⁓ and I think it was interesting to people to explore the Dom sub stuff, which I think is not, I mean, it's not really talked about much mainstream. ⁓ so do you.
On that note, do you want to talk a little bit about his playroom? They don't spend a lot of time in it. I actually expected a lot more of that in this movie. Did you?
Yeah.
Yeah, like a good chunk of the sex scenes are just in her bedroom, just in a regular room. isn't really until the end, like the last act of the movie where she kind of gives in to, doing what he wants in his playroom. It's basically a room with just a bed and then the whole rest of the room is set up with his
sex toys and whips and ropes and all sorts of other things that he's into. I'd seen the memes and the discussion around this movie, I thought that the playroom was going to be a much bigger part of the movie, but it's not really to the last third that we get to see anything happen in it. There's a lot of sex scenes in this movie and it's very gratuitous.
yet.
Yeah. mean, it's, according to Vietnam, the Vietnam edit, I guess it's, it's about 20, 20 minutes of sex scenes, depending on what you count as a scene. Yeah. It's about, I actually looked it up. I think it's about like 10 to 12 scenes, depending on how you define it. So there's a lot of sex, but, and yeah, a lot of, I would say the nudity itself is, you know, topless. We, we saw a little.
Felt like more.
little taste of a male frontal nudity for the women, but, not much, a little bit of neck.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I did wonder his playroom. Is there is there like a guy you can get to like a company to help you set up that playroom? ⁓
Surely. I mean, if you've
got that much money, you can probably find anybody to do anything.
Yeah, that's true as a billionaire. What does he do? Did you catch that?
No, I didn't know.
It just seemed like he owned a conglomerate of companies and I tried researching it, but, I think the fans were less interested than I was in the details of Christian Grey's, business empire.
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, he's got a whole skyscraper with his name right on the side of it, so he must be doing something right. But I don't know what it was. I don't know if it was like a media thing or. We do see him talk business from time to time with somebody on the phone, but it's all just generic like we'll make it happen, you know, stuff like that.
Yeah, I.
Yeah, it seemed like there was something towards the end. was something really critical happening where he had to leave all of a sudden and he was really agitated. And I expected something to come out of that. Like he was about to lose his empire or something, but they just dropped it. ⁓ yeah, I felt like, yeah, I wanted to see a little bit more of that. Like what, what made him tick and what his background was.
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
⁓ I guess we should say, ⁓ to help give some context to the audience. ⁓ I should ask you, what are all your sexual kinks? Just let's just, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Make sure we have the right background for people listening. Yeah.
Just get those out of the way right up front.
Well, let me tell you, this movie awoke something in me.
Just kidding.
Maybe it did for a lot of people to watch.
I'm sure that it did, actually.
So, yeah, it's, it's the funny thing to me is, you know, she's this naive, uh, she's never had sex before. She's never, I forget how she puts it. She's never done anything with a guy before. And she comes to his apartment. Yeah, that's what it kind of alludes to. And, and then he, they don't even really go on a date. He brings her to his apartment and has her signing NDAs.
Right. I don't even think she's kissed a guy.
I was just like, imagine waiting to have sex with the right guy and like this is, this is how it starts. Like this is, this is a lot. I feel like it's a little unbelievable that she wouldn't just be overwhelmed by all this.
Yeah, and she seemed to imply that this is what she'd been waiting for. this kind of relationship. Like, she was waiting for the right guy to come along, by her going along with it seems to imply that this is what she wanted.
Ha ha ha.
Yeah. I mean, there is tension through the whole movie about she's not, she's not eagerly ready to sign the contract and does want more. he, she's trying to change him, I guess. And he's obviously trying to change her because she's, this is so far from what her experience has been. and she, she just wants somebody who's to actually go on dates and with, and, have a.
I guess a romantic relationship and he really just wants more of a transactional relationship
Yeah, which makes me question, you know, if she's got these red flags about the NDA stuff and the contract and the Dom submissive relationship, if those are her red flags, then what about him is it that she's attracted to other than he's just rich and handsome? Like he's not kind to her or like... ⁓
He buys her things. He buys her a new computer. He buys her a car. ⁓ But he's super controlling and rude in a lot of ways. Like yells at her for getting drunk at the bar with her friends. ⁓ So like, if this is what she's been waiting for, she's just been waiting for a rich, handsome man and nothing about his personality. I guess so.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Hahaha.
I mean, aren't we all?
I mean, you could easily see a equivalent of this movie targeted towards men where it's just, you know, some hot, sexy woman or whatever that doesn't treat him well and all that.
American pie. The graduate.
Yeah.
I mean list almost every movie ever created.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's fair. This is just the flip side of that same coin.
Yeah. Yeah.
how many times did you throw up in your mouth or roll your eyes or cringe in this movie?
I mean, this is, jumping on analysis. I don't think I, I don't think I threw up at my mouth at all. you?
No, I didn't. I didn't throw up, but ⁓ it was pretty much constant eye rolling ⁓ through this movie for me. It seemed like every time there was a scene with the two of them and there was dialogue, I was like, who's who talks like this? Who's into this?
Yeah
Was it?
Wait, so
was there ever a scene where it wasn't one of the two of them in it?
That's a good question.
I mean,
so you're basically just saying you liked, you only liked the sex scenes. You wanted the cut, whereas no plot, just the...
I mean,
the sex scenes I can understand, but the dialogue and the road leading us up to those sex scenes, I'm like, why is she going along with this?
By the way, speaking of the sex scenes, one of the times for me, at least the direction of it with the sex scenes is I think it's their very first sex scene and they're in bed and then the camera pans up from the bed to the headboard, you know, and it's like the camera shot that you see in every single movie, the two characters are under the sheets and it like gracefully like pans away and like, you know, goes to this window with the like...
curtains flapping in the breeze or something like that, you know, without showing. ⁓ Yeah, exactly. But here, the camera pans up to the headboard and then keeps going to the ceiling where you see a mirror on the ceiling. You see more of the sex scene. I was like, ⁓ this is what we're in for for the rest of the movie.
Yeah.
It's implying that, yeah.
Hahaha!
You
They
subverted your expectations.
Yeah, they're just like, we're going to go all angles.
Ha
I didn't remember that, that's exactly what I would expect from this movie.
Yeah.
I want to know what happened to his last 15 subs that signed this contract. He said there have been 15 other women. That's a lot to go through and however, like he's mid thirties, young thirties.
Yeah.
Yeah, at most, I think like he's she she comments like, how did you make so much money so young? Like he's a clearly a young guy. ⁓ He doesn't he look he's older than her, but he doesn't seem like way older than her. And yeah, I was also like, these women are buried somewhere. he says he's been with 15 women who signed this contract, and that's not a red flag for her either. Like and she's also
Right.
Only allowed to stay at his house like Friday through Monday or something like that or it's like half the week. Yeah.
Yeah, it's the weekends.
Yeah, I thought that was because he was just really busy with work, which I don't know if I've said this already, but I just feel like, how do you have time for this? This is a lot of work to put into your sex life.
Yeah, yeah, it does seem like a lot of work.
Because I want to know what the success rate is too of how many women did he have to bring back and slider that contract?
to say no to get to 15 women that signed it.
Yeah, that's, I mean, that's probably at least one a year that he's bringing back, assuming he's 35 and he started in his twenties. That's at least one woman a year he's doing this with. Yeah, it seems like a lot of a lot of effort to like, and why are that? Like, how do you get out of it? These women obviously aren't part of it anymore. So. ⁓
Yeah.
I mean,
there's only one way out. Yeah, I felt like one of my biggest complaints about the movie is I thought it would have been a much more interesting movie if they dug more into his backstory. And I guess I understand it's a fantasy. It's not really like to explore his psyche, but clearly, got messed up.
I guess so.
if I'm not implying that if you're into being a dominatrix that that's messed up, but like him specifically that character, like he's troubled. he says as much and they didn't really go into that much. there was really no character arc for either of them. there was a tension of their own relationship, but
Mm-hmm.
The movie just kind of hinted at stuff and then ended.
Yeah, well, E.L. James, I read that she wrote three more books after this from the perspective of Christian, that it was just telling the same story, but from his perspective. But the criticisms I read of those books are that it doesn't add anything and it's mostly just retelling the same thing just to sell the same book again. So even when she tried to.
Yeah.
Yeah.
to his side of the story. I don't know that she had a story to tell for Christian really. So yeah, I don't know. There's not a lot there, not a lot of substance to these characters.
Yeah.
Yeah, other questions I had. Did he put spyware on that computer he gave her? He totally did, didn't he? ⁓
yeah, that was
my first thought was I wouldn't I wouldn't load anything onto that computer
⁓ I also made a note when they're, negotiating the contracts, she hilariously asked him what butt plugs are.
Yeah.
which should be self-evident, I Maybe ask why. That's probably a more important question than what, but he never answers. She never gets the answer. ⁓
Yeah, it's in the name.
Yeah
Yeah.
No,
she's gonna have to do her own research.
Yeah, like I said, I thought that scene was pretty cheesy. Lots of cheesy dialogue.
I wrote a few pieces of dialogue down that I liked. I forget what scene this was from, but this I think was pretty early on. Christian says two things. I don't make love. I fuck hard.
⁓ yeah.
Yeah.
I never caught the second thing, but maybe that's two things in one. ⁓
guess so.
Yeah, there's a lot of lines that are like that, that are very, that I felt like as a man, if I tried it, a woman would laugh at me or slap me.
Yeah, you'd get the cops called on you.
Right. I'm not not hot enough or rich enough to pull this off.
Yeah, I liked when he said that he was 50 shades of fucked up. I was like, you and me both.
Yeah.
I like the scene when she walks out of the interview, when she interviews him for the first time and she comes walking out of the building into the rain and she looks like she's about to explode. She's like, it looks like the rain is literally, she's going to start steaming when she hits the rain.
Ha ha ha ha.
I noted that too and I was like, has she never seen rain before either? Because it's after she's in awe of the skyscrapers and she's just like looking to the heavens like, what is this water that has come forth and awakened me?
You
Yeah, and
there's nothing really about that interview scene at the beginning where I was like, I would be so blown off, know, swept off my feet that I need to get out into the rain to cool off.
Hahaha
Any other funny moments?
⁓ I didn't find this movie to be particularly funny. It was I was just red flagging and cringing the whole time. Like, don't spend any more time with this man.
Hehehehehe
He
Yeah, I did find it funny when she goes to Alabama, wherever to see her mom and he shows up there and says he got a hotel room and next door and she said, well, I hope you'll be comfortable in it.
Yeah, I did like that line. She's got some sass to her.
Yeah.
Yeah. See, I felt like she was, and she delivered those lines well, I thought.
Yeah, but those were like one liners. She didn't have a scene where she was like powerful in the scene or anything like.
Ha ha ha.
Yeah, by the way, speaking of red flags, I don't know if this is a red flag really, but would you do that glider plane thing? The sail plane with no engine.
No. I mean, I would do it.
Yeah, I would do it just if we're gliding. But he was doing like barrel rolls and stuff. And I would be I was nervous just watching it. I'm like, I know that this is a stunt for a movie and it's going to be fine. But it made me nervous watching that thing roll over. I would I would have thrown up. No, I've always wanted to do like those ride alongs with the.
Ha
Yeah.
I would not get in that thing.
Blue Angels or whatever, where they take you up in a jet and do flips and barrel rolls and stuff. But I do think I would pass out and throw up at the same time. Yeah.
Hot date.
Maybe it was a metaphor for her just giving in to, yeah.
She's head over heels.
Why isn't it heels over head?
yeah, your head is always over your heels. Well, you're just a romantic at heart. And play Xbox.
I'm always head over heels.
I guess don't do romance.
I fuck hard.
How awkward was this viewing experience for you? Did you have to wait till the middle of the night when everyone's asleep?
Ha ha ha.
Uh, yeah, I mean, Kelly knew that I was going to watch it. So I, I did prepare. wasn't like she just, you know, walked in on me watching 50 shades of gray 10 years after I was in the theaters.
You
Yeah, alone in the basement with the lights off.
Yeah. ⁓
yeah, one of my, one of my kids was like messing around in the kitchen. I was like, I should, I should make sure the volume is turned down because that would be a little weird, but, I feel like my kids are pretty, pretty oblivious to what I'm watching most of the time. Anyway, they, they have headphones on or something. How about you? Did you watch it alone?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I did watch it alone. I watched it kind of late after Amanda had gone to bed. So I didn't finish this in one night. Yeah, I couldn't. I couldn't do it. So I watched maybe the first three quarters kind of in the middle of the night and then finished it the next day. But yeah, Amanda knew what I was watching and so it wasn't uncomfortable for me. I don't have kids or anything, so it was.
Yeah.
Fine, I was
just in my office watching it.
Could you imagine seeing this in theaters?
I talked to Amanda about that and she was like, why would anybody want to go into public to watch this with other people? Which I guess is the same for like those dirty movie theaters that you know, we're in Times Square back in the 70s and stuff. But like I don't get the appeal of that, especially now when this type of thing is readily available on your phone in your pocket. You don't have to go to a theater to get this kind of, I mean, it's basically soft core porn.
at least 20 minutes of it.
Yeah.
to be charitable, I don't think most people were going to see this because of the nudity. Like to your point, porn is widely available by 2015 to anybody who doesn't have a flip phone still, or has a computer at home. So there's no re and it's not, there's not so much nudity that it's like,
I guess.
You know, I can't get this on on the internet. I, probably just feels, ⁓ like that's all that's left. If you're not into the story. I mean, there's probably not more nudity than say eyes wide shut or, you know, movies like that, where, you probably wouldn't say that about going to see eyes, eyes wide shut in the theater. Like, why are these people going to see this with, with others?
Yeah, but Eyes Wide Shut, that's a Kubrick movie. Like I would go see a Kubrick movie in theaters no matter what it is if he was still alive. So.
I mean, but that's my point that I think most people who went and saw this and would go see this aren't like, I'm going to see this because of the nude scenes. They really love the relationship of Anastasia and Christian and that whole fantasy and like they're into the story. That's why they read the novel. You're not reading the novel. ⁓
Fair.
But how?
If the novel dialogue is worse than what's in the movie, what story is there other than the sex parts?
You just,
I mean, it's just not for you. You just can't relate. That's the, that's the thing. So if the only, if the only thing you're left with is the nudity, then yeah, you're not going to go see that in theaters.
I guess so.
It's not even like Dakota Johnson wasn't a well-known, this was her breakout role in this and I don't know how popular he was, like it wasn't like it was some well-known actress that you're like, I'm gonna go see it cause she's in it naked. It was like.
Yeah. No, nobody.
Yeah, exactly that. I mean that underscores my point. That they're not going for her.
I know,
your point is like perfectly valid. I just don't get it. I don't get what... Are women okay? Are we not? I guess men are not giving them what they need. ⁓
Yeah, I think they've been trying to tell men that for generations.
Men are not okay. That's the problem. We're playing on our Xbox, not romancing them.
I guess so.
Yeah, but he's not romancing her either. That's the thing. He's just like he's he's not Prince Charming by any means.
Well
Yeah, I mean, you he comes around and he is hot and rich, so I don't know. That's the he's at least got two of those points working for him.
Yeah.
How well do you think that this movie handles the concept of consent? Considering it's supposed to be romantic, or maybe not romantic, but about a relationship.
I mean...
Well, I certainly should be the one to answer that question, pretty well considering they spend like 15 minutes talking through a legal document. guess how much more, I mean, he doesn't even touch her until she like gives her verbal consent to that, right?
Yeah, but she never signed the document as far as I know the the The like Dom submissive document. I don't think she ever signed it in this movie but
Right. I mean, they never
get into that relationship fully anyway.
Yeah, a little bit by the end. And when she leaves, she basically they have a session that he wants to punish her and he gets a little rougher with her than she expected, I guess. I don't know what she expected. He pretty much told her what he was going to do. But then she got mad and left and. And that was the end of the movie, really.
Yeah.
Yeah.
There's no happy ending to this movie. She gets in an elevator and leaves. I was not expecting that to be the ending at all.
Yeah, it just kind of ends abruptly, especially for a movie that's over two hours long. It just kind of ends. what did you think about the soundtrack?
Yeah. Yeah.
I thought it was great. That was my favorite part of the movie. ⁓ Music was done by Danny Elfman, super famous, well-known composer. I would listen to the soundtrack over and over again, which is really the only thing from this movie I'd ever revisit.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah,
the soundtrack did really well too commercially. Mix of everything from Sinatra to, I don't know. Yeah. Pretty eclectic.
That doesn't surprise me.
Beyonce. Yeah, it was really
good.
before we get into verdicts, I assume you're not going to see the two sequels.
Not unless they come up on this podcast.
I did read the synopsis or the plot summary in Wikipedia about the two sequels. Cause I was just curious kind of where it went from there. ⁓ Did you read about it at all? Yeah. It seems like the second movie gets more into Christian's background and I am not curious enough to actually watch the second movie, but.
Mm hmm. I did.
I think it probably did satisfy some of my frustration with this movie and like seemed to go a little bit more into his relationship with the woman that raped him and a little bit more about his background and history.
Yeah. And they, think they end up getting married eventually in the story and yeah. Yep.
Yeah, spoiler alert. They get married, they have kids.
It does, it does end happily ever after. And it seems like everybody in that you mentioned, there aren't many supporting characters and it seems like all the supporting characters end up getting together. Like her roommate marries his brother and then Jose, the guy in the friend zone marries his sister or something, or at least dates his sister. It's a closed universe.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. It's much like those, it's much like Morbius or things like that where you would think that there'd be a lot more side characters or people working in these areas that we never meet. it's all just like five characters that all interact with each other for the whole movie.
Yeah. So what's your verdict?
I wrote that this movie is as thirsty as a sponge in a drought. ⁓ There's not a lot of plot. The characters are fairly shallow. I wish that they explored the characters more. I think that there could be a good story there if they got into that, but it really seems to just be kind of a fetish fantasy movie.
Ha ha ha.
To me, was really obvious that this was written as fanfic by an amateur. If the dialogue was brushed up by Patrick Marber, then I can't imagine what the book was like. I didn't like Dakota Johnson.
I didn't have an issue with any of the directing. Nothing jumped out at me. I don't know if it did for you, but I think the direction was fine. There was some conflict between the director and the writer of the novel novels, E.L. James. I don't know what that conflict was. I think that the writer just wanted to have control, but ⁓ I don't know if that showed in the final product or not. It sounds like the director.
would not do another one of these movies from what she said. Costumes were fine, although I did laugh at at one part where it looked like one of Christian Christian Grey's suit looked like Michael Scott from The Office when he was wearing the ladies suit. It just seemed like it was tailored kind of strangely. The soundtrack was great, but yeah, I would say it left me 50 shades of.
I didn't notice that.
Nope, it was two hours of red flags for me. So I would give it one star and I don't think I'd watch it again.
Yeah.
I didn't enjoy it. It wasn't for me. I think you hated it more than I did. I felt like I was actually expecting it to be worse. Maybe my expectations were so low we're now a few months into this podcast and,
If I would have seen this at the beginning, I may have been like, this is one of the worst movies I've seen. But now I'm like, Nope, it could be way worse. like I said earlier, I felt like Madame Webb was like just way where I was just bored. And like, was like, there's nothing redeeming about it. And maybe I'm being too generous by saying this movie isn't for me, but I can imagine it being for other people. but yeah, I wasn't entertained. I didn't.
Yeah.
I won't watch it again unless I have to, but I also didn't feel like, this acting is terrible. This dialogue is like, you know, unbearable. wasn't good. There were a bunch of cheesy scenes and some cringey moments. I felt like a lot was lacking, like I said, in terms of the character depth and the story. But yeah, It was okay for what it was.
what I wonder about it, seeing it 10 years after the fact and not seeing a lot of the criticism at the time that it came out. Like, I just wonder if some of the negative hype was a little bit overblown because of just how different the movie is in terms of, I guess, how risque it is and how much.
Like how much of that criticism was from people that didn't even see the movie or like criticizing the idea of like a fantasy story. Like you joked about at the beginning. It's it is like one of those Fabio romance novels, which I don't read either, but like I don't want to throw shade on somebody that's into that. And that's kind of how I feel about this. It's like, yeah, I mean, you like cheesy romance novels. I like cheesy sci-fi novels and you know, action movies. And so.
Yeah.
Those aren't, some of those aren't good either, but like, I can be entertained by them. And I guess I see this as like, in a genre I don't love, but you know, it's fine.
Yeah, I think to piggyback off that, would say it's definitely not for me, but I don't begrudge anyone that this is for them. It was never a movie intended for me.
Yeah. And clearly tons of people love this. Again, they paid money to go see this in theaters and paid a lot of money to see the other two movies and buy the books. And, you know, I'm sure there are people who've read the books over and over and seen these movies like dozens of times. So, yeah, I mean, it did well. Like, I don't think you could say that about War of the Worlds. You know, maybe very, very few people who are watching.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Ha
those movies over and over. Yeah, exactly. What would be your alt pics?
That's a movie for nobody.
I picked the Phantom Thread 2017 by Paul Thomas Anderson, has Daniel Day Lewis. I think that it has kind of very similar themes of like obsession and control and dominance from a successful older man over a younger kind of passive or naive woman. And then over the course of the movie, I don't want to give anything away, but
Okay.
Yeah.
you the woman becomes kind of a negotiator of power and the relationship itself. So I thought it was thematically really similar to this. It's just, I thought it was kind of more palatable for a general audience.
Yeah. Great. Great pick. I picked, first of all, the fall, which I mentioned that Jamie Dornan is in, I really enjoyed it. Gillian Anderson is the.
other lead in it. plays the detective going after the serial killer. my other old pick is a movie that came out this year called Splitsville that stars Dakota Johnson. And, I saw that in theaters and liked it a lot, laughed a lot. It's a, it's a comedy, I guess, bit of romance in it too. ⁓ I don't know if she will.
change your mind about her acting skills. Because I don't, I don't know that she, her range is much further than what she plays in Fifty Shades of Grey. I guess she plays maybe more of the Christian Grey character in Splitsville. But yeah, from a performance standpoint.
I was gonna ask how our performance was.
interesting.
It's not a character that calls for a lot of range, but the movie itself is hilarious. I highly recommend watching it. I think you'll like it.
Nice.
Well, I think that's probably all that you have patience for talking about 50 shades of gray. Tune in next time when we cover the sequel, 51 shades. No, what's it called? 50 shades darker?
You
Yeah, 50 shades darker.
No, I'm just kidding. We are not going to continue with the series. But we will continue with Naughty November and another steamy pick that was poorly reviewed by critics. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe on Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. And any thoughts or comments if you want to rip us apart for being two dudes.
You
reviewing Fifty Shades of Grey, send us an email at theworstmoviepodcasts at gmail.com. I'm Ade.
And I'm Aaron. Thanks for listening to the Worst Movie Podcast.