Films to see

Fifty Shades of Grey is a standard boy meets girl, boy subjects girl to all sorts of abuse, girl falls in love with boy type of movie. It's an improvement on the book, but that in itself is far from being a compliment.

Let's not waste time talking about the plot. It suffices to say that the film should have been called Fifty Shades of Boring and the first sentence of this review already contains a detailed summary. In addition to being utterly uninteresting and full of clichés, the film also has a sort of (probably unintentional) strangeness about it. It's a bit like being in someone else's fantasy - profoundly awkward with a feeling of "I really didn't want to know that".

Apart from the numerous shortcomings, there are actually a few promising bits of directing and some (basic and rather obvious) foreshadowing, but the rest of the film far outweighs these few positives. The performances featured in this film are okay, but one has to wonder about some of the strange casting choices. If it weren't for the male lead's distracting torso, this incredibly adorable maternal-instinct-stimulating puppy of an actor would be a very poor choice indeed. The soundtrack is desperately trying to sound romantic, which highlights the lameness and inappropriateness of the whole thing.

Fifty Shades of Grey is a new level of boring. If you actually decide to watch it, you will spend 85 minute waiting for something to happen and the other 40 minutes examining the ceiling. The film is not even shocking or breaking conventions - we see some level of pointless abuse of women in so many places these days, and this is just another one of those.