Fifty Shades Freed

Fifty Shades Freed

Starring Dakota Johnson, Jamie Dornan, Eric Johnson, Eloise Mumford

Directed by James Foley

The Story:
After getting married, Christian (Jamie Dornan) and Anastasia (Dakota Johnson) Grey live the happy newlywed life - traveling the world, engaging in their favorite sexual fantasies, all that good stuff.  Then the happiness is thwarted when Ana's old boss Jack Hyde (Eric Johnson) re-emerges, threatening their idyllic new life together.

The Synopsis:
Where do I start?

I saw "Fifty Shades of Grey" because I wanted to see how absolutely awful it was, and it more than lived up to my low, low, low...very low...expectations.  It was a terrible story with no plot, delivered by two terrible actors (not their fault, they were given crap to work with) who had as much chemistry as water mixing with more water.  It was so bad I never even bothered with the sequel, "Fifty Shades Darker."

So when the final installment hit theaters, after I made a personal goal to see every film that comes out in theaters this year, I immediately regretted my decision and wished I had the lack of fortitude to renege on my own word, but alas I am too true to myself to do that.  Call it artistic integrity, suffering for my art, either one is good and aptly describes what I had to sit through.

That, unfortunately, was "Fifty Shades Freed," a film I was somewhat worried about not knowing enough about since I failed to see the second film, but thankfully the script was written by someone's best friend's cousin's dog's groundhog's flea, so I was able to catch up right away and didn't have to worry about piecing together the missing chunk of information between the first and third film to follow this highly cerebral storyline - yeah, not very cerebral at all.

So the world's most dysfunctional couple wed - I guess you can say they put the "fun" in dysfunctional - and since they're both incredibly wealthy (Christian owns some sort of business, I don't know what business that is, but he wears suits a lot and has a building named after him, so he must be important) they can travel the world for their honeymoon, just like the rest of us!  Maybe that's why "author" (in quotations because calling her an author is an insult to authors past, present, and future) E.L. James (ugh, she has my last name) made them so impossibly perfect, because it was after all firstly a "Twilight" fanfic that she somehow turned into three books that also somehow managed to make millions of dollars and millions of bored single soccer moms excited (apologies to single soccer moms out there, I don't mean to lump you all into this definition, but if the shoe fits...).

I'll never understand - because I'm not a woman - the concept of "love" that Christian shows Ana.  The opening scene is their wedding, where he promises to love her faithfully, forsaking all others, to comfort her in times of need, and keep her safe.  The day they got married must've been opposite day, because the rest of the film shows how he doesn't love her faithfully (he talks to old flames when he gets angry at her), doesn't forsake all others (again, talking with old flames), he doesn't comfort her in times of need (when she's attacked, he forces her into his Red Room sex dungeon where he acts out violently against her), and he surely doesn't keep her safe (she pretty much has to fend for herself).  In the age of #metoo, I feel that a film like this is a slap in the face for all women who suffer at the hands of abusive men.  Yes, she has control over what happens and he stops when she asks, but it doesn't seem like a healthy relationship.

Basically, the whole film centers around their newfound marriage, and the pitfalls that come between them, mostly of their own doing.  It was like watching snippets of a television series where each scene is something different, not a cohesive narrative, but rather an episode of the week.  One moment she's out having drinks with her friend, and the next Christian is punishing her for disobeying his command (true love right there).  Then she's at work, but then she's going to Aspen with Christian, and then driving down a road with someone chasing them.  The film is all over the place, and if I gave one iota of care, I'd be trying to piece it all together, but since I didn't, it didn't matter to me.

The film had no clue what it was supposed to be, as neither did the "novel" I'm assuming.  On their honeymoon, Christian's business gets bombed (we don't see the bombing happen but rather hear about it from an underling) in what seems like a James Bond-style epic.  Then as they're driving through the countryside they get chased by a car, and perform some epic maneuvers you would see in "Fast and the Furious" - after all, WWVDD? (What Would Vin Diesel Do?).  Then there's Ana's friend who's dating Christian's brother, and he proposes to her and she accepts, but that's pretty much all we get of that - not even the side story where she fears he's sleeping around.  Doesn't go anywhere.  Oh, and then there's Christian's sister (played by singer Rita Ora), who becomes a pivotal part of the finishing conclusion in a way that makes you think of the old silent era films where the bad guy with the twirling mustache has the damsel in distress tied up against railroad tracks.

For this film, the villain is Jack Hyde (I can't even...the bad guy's last name is Hyde...like Jekyll & Hyde...I can't even), who I guess assaulted Ana in the previous film but somehow managed to just be around without getting arrested or anything.  He was her boss, but harbors insane hatred for her and Christian especially for reasons unknown - until the end, but even then the reasoning doesn't make a lick of sense.  Yes, he got fired because he was a pig and assaulted Ana, and how it ended up being her fault is beyond me.  Anyway, Hyde exists in the peripheral for most of the film until he hatches a plan against Ana at the last moments of the film that's so convoluted and plain silly it doesn't make any logical sense.

I fear that films like "Fifty Shades" gives a false impression of a fantasy that can lead women to living lives of subjugation and servitude.  How it's alright for a man to tie up a woman, beat her, embarrass her, humiliate her, control her every moment, and the woman is accepting of it with no questions asked just because he's wealthy and has abs chiseled from the rock of Gibraltar.  Interestingly enough, Hyde has the same type of feeling for Ana that Christian has, but she's repulsed by him because he's not wealthy and not as attractive (I'm assuming that's the reason anyway).  So basically it's a great fantasy to be degraded like that by an attractive, wealthy man, but if it happens in real life with a poor, not-so-attractive man, it's the worst thing ever.  Not a good message to send.

The chemistry between Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan remains as icy cold as ever, but they had more a playful banter between the two of them this time, probably because they both know that - as the title suggests - they'll finally be freed from the awful trilogy and will never have to work or speak to each other again.  Both actors have gone on the record saying they didn't really care for the script, or for each other for that matter, but they money was right, so why not?  It shows in the final product that both of them are just out for the paycheck and not making a memorable film that will echo through the ages as one of the most romantic pairings since Romeo and Juliet.

The Summary:
Freed at last, we are finally released from the torture that was the "Fifty Shades" trilogy,  a film that went out with a whimper due to a schizophrenic script and two chemistry-less leads.

The Score: D-