Almost Parisian

There may be spoilers below, but who cares.

I didn’t read the book. I might decide to endure it, though, for the same perverted reasons I decided to watch the movie. The word ‘perverted’ here, is in no way related to the subject covered in the film. It means ‘being completely aware that you’ll have a bad time, and still doing it’.

The media went as far as calling it “almost porn”, when they should have called it ‘almost endurable’.

The French expressed their “I am not amused” by letting children watch it. I should have known what to expect when I read that article. But you know, the French also made “Irreversible“, so I figured they were hard to impress anyway.

Then, a friend who is easily impressed watched it. She was not impressed.

I was going to watch it with friends first, but then everyone just somehow got to watch before I got to it, so one evening, while looking for something ‘simple’ to watch with my boyfriend, after countless nights of French cinema, we came across this title. I had promised him that he would not have to watch it with me, even if it is for the laughs, but that night, we were in such a sarcastic, troll mood, we just hit play.

So, this is the first time I see Dakota Johnson, and I have seen Jamie Dornan elsewhere before. While I’m not too fond of her onscreen appearance, she did strike me as talented. And for him, I know he is talented, I just don’t know why he had to do this to himself. Jamie Dornan is a hot guy. He can play the part of a hot guy. What the hell happened to him?

I felt deceived. The internet went crazy for the movie. Every day, my social media feeds were packed with it.

OMG THE FIRST TRAILER!

OMG THE SECOND FIRST TRAILER!

OMG, A THIRD TRAILER!

OMG YOU WON’T BELIEVE WHAT JAMIE DORNAN DID! (nothing)

OMG OMG SO HOT!

OMG YOU’RE NOT GONNA LIKE WHAT DAKOTA JOHNSON SAID FOR WHOEVERTHEFUCK!

OMG, DIRECTOR AND WRITER IN A HUGE FIGHT! (naturally)

You can imagine why I expected some serious erotica. I didn’t expect high quality in terms of story, but hey, this is the story that put erotica books back on the map, at least they have to make the most of it and make the movie better than it’s supposed to be, right?

No.

This is a story about a douchey, rich guy, who may even be a pseudo-intellectual (but we never see it), extremely damaged in his childhood, enough to be BDSM, but not enough to stop being nice to random pushover girls. Socially damaged enough to be emotionally unavailable, but not quite so unavailable to call himself  ‘a boyfriend’ in public. He thinks highly of himself to the point of thinking that ‘I don’t make love, I fuck’ is cool to say (it’s not, it never will be), but somehow, he totally freaks out and stops his light bondage episode WHEN HIS MOM COMES UNANNOUNCED!

That was my favorite scene. When the mom interrupted the serious, damaged, fucked up young businessman who lives alone and rides his own helicopter. Do you think that his mom got it for him, after he threw a tantrum at a local helipad?

It’s also a story about a girl who we need to accept as a literature student because she mentioned Tess of the D’Urbervilles. And her inexperience, followed by sexual awakening. And, as I heard and read on so many occasions, her inner goddess.

Do we see the goddess? No. Do we see character development? No. Do we see the cruel/cool unavailability of Christian Grey? No, just his puppy dog eyes while he’s getting cables and duct tape. Do we see, or feel sexual chemistry? GOD, no.

And his mom, of course ❤ (Did you know he takes his submissive to meet his parents? ❤ )

And of course, this is a story about their ridiculous relationship. That’s it. A boyfriend/girlfriend story, where the boyfriend is a controlling, douchebag freak who thinks he knows something about BDSM, and the girlfriend is a little smarter than that. But not like a lot smarter than that. Oh yes, and this movie has an outrageously horrible ending. I don’t care if it’s only part one.

I’m happy for all the fans out there, though. You must be having a blast. But I’m going back to French cinema, or at least David Cronenberg.

If anything, he knows what he’s doing.

xx

J.

(I’m also cool on Facebook.)

(( I also wrote a book and it’s not erotica.))