Grey vs Grey: How Casting is Imperative For Your Sex Story to Work
From the start of mass-produced motion pictures displayed for paying audiences, there has been a fascination with sexuality on screen. Some are movies that I have seen and loved, others I have hated. I had never thought hard about the reason for my varied reactions, but I began to consider them as I watched the movie Secretary last week. I was enamored by what was unfolding on my TV screen even though there was almost nothing explicit and nothing flashy about the film. Even more curiously, it was exploring a type of relationship in which the power dynamic makes me uncomfortable in a lot of ways. The reviews I read after the fact by other Letterboxd users served as almost a confirmation that it was not questionable to have a positive reaction to this film. I was curious since it was made by a man and about a woman’s evolution in the realm of pleasure, emotional turmoil, and agency—and the self-discovery was through an inappropriate relationship with her boss. The display of power dynamics, BDSM relationships, and a suspiciously identical surname brought me to consider Fifty Shades of Grey and why that movie had provoked such an inverse reaction to this film: mostly obsessively negative with a few lukewarm to positive opinions tossed in. From there I thought about all of these movies that I had seen—not just “kink” related sexuality but the topic in general—and realized that casting was such a prominent part of what did and did not work about them; and that it was so far beyond which men I found visually attractive. Full transparency: I tried to write this essay without watching Fifty Shades of Grey because I took high levels of petty pride in not caving in to that particular phenomenon. However, I eventually admitted to myself that holding such a strong opinion about something without first-hand knowledge was an insufferable trait and would undermine anything I actually would work hard to say. So…I shed my self-congratulating pride and did my research. Research that, as it turned out, was both confirming and also (to cater to Ms. Steele’s vocabulary) “enlightening”.
Fifty Shades of Grey fails miserably where Secretary succeeds: there is definitively nothing interesting or human about its Mr. Grey. Audiences blamed the kinky subject matter and blank slate characters for the failed attempt to bring a problematic piece of writing to a large screen for wide audiences. Sure, there are lines that need to be danced around to format explicit content for mainstream consumers. Further, it is tough to buy into anything happening on that screen if everything (including the people) is shiny, outlandish, and empty. Watching the movie is almost like watching a hypothetical adult-themed SkyMall Infomercial. Jamie Dornan is an undeniably handsome man in the most mainstream and expensive way. He posses a chiseled jaw and model experience making him more than a natural at finding his best camera angles. What he lacks, however, is a true on-screen presence and any form of charisma; which are essential qualities in an actor if you are going to sell a peripheral preference to the average housewife. Or any human, really.
Leads need to be vulnerable and they need to show emotions. To swing back over to Secretary’s Mr. Grey for a moment consider how James Spader manages to balance a performance showing shame, intrigue, and desire—often at the same time. Fifty Shades tells us that Christian feels these things through some of his dialogue but Dornan never. Ever. Shows. Us. This. And without his character’s inner conflict we are left with a robotic monster of a man who sociopathically likes to inflict increasing amounts of pain on an inexperienced woman of his choosing. Emotions are essential to connecting with the characters. In contrast to Dornan, Spader is not a traditionally handsome man. He is awkward and strange without bold features or flash. What he does have, again, in contrast, is quiet intensity and an endearing demeanor that lingers in every element of his performance—the physical and the spoken. There is a calmness that is alluring, odd, and somewhat innocent that keeps his character firmly on the side of peculiar rather than creepy.
Subtlety is necessary for submissive women counterparts as well. Dakota Johnson garners a lot of sympathy from me because I do not believe that she is a bad actress. In fact, I think she is the only thing holding this movie together at all. She displays the romantic qualities that her character tells us that she has and makes conscious choices as an actress to add dimension to yet another poorly written character—this time a cliched, innocent literary caricature. She still plays Ana in a straight forward manner, however (though this may be a director choice so that Ana remains the “every girl”). Maggie Gyllenhaal takes another approach to her submissive character—growth, and connection. She doesn’t just beg her Mr. Grey for an emotional element to build upon she takes the task into her own hands. She adds gentle gestures, like a pinky-stroke for consent, and coy half-smiles to lead the story forward. This is her journey, her awakening. We almost never see a single act take place and there is no nudity throughout the film, yet we feel every element of sexual tension between the characters. This is because the actors make the choice to show their characters as humans so that tension has a chance of existing.
To again be fair to Johnson, she is working so hard to create some kind of romantic spark or chemistry with her uncharismatic costar that she barely has any energy left to build a story for Ana. This falls on the casting director who chose to go for good looks over a unique presentation. As important as a human dynamic within a single character is it is doubly important that the actors bring the correct chemistry to believe the story. There is no heat in Fifty Shades and very little flirtatious tepidness. So why would the push/pull have any reason to continue? It is almost as though the actors are just going through the motions. And when the sexual line is finally crossed there is no mutual awkwardness or shared outrage and desire for understanding. Instead, there is a character who is angry and another who is (I think?) confused, both working as separate entities orbiting around a shared scene. Never once do they play on the other’s emotions or actions. Everything is stale and the stakes are low.
Lastly, movies often need interest in other things outside of the sexual elements in order to function. It is why you see a film like Naked use aggressive sexual behavior as a symptom of disturbed characters’ respective breakdowns and power trips (albeit questionably). It is also why Last Tango in Paris gives Marlon Brando the scene with his dead wife’s casket and Maria Schneider a chance to remember her father. Or why even Superbad was self-aware enough to include an entire side plot involving a fake ID and police going along with underage drinking. Fifty Shades of Grey has nothing to offer for Christian which effectively means Dornan has nothing to soften (or harden) his performance. Christian is a man of cold logic, devoid of empathy or any real internal struggle, and centered only on a singular obsessive pursuit. Fifty Shades had the chance to fill its blank slate with something dynamic and interesting. But, it does not work because it is a conflicted mess of a narrative and presentation. The sexual dynamics of the main couple are all that it is interested in and there is neither charisma nor chemistry for the viewer to buy into. Secretary carries the sly, subtle dynamics indicative of pictures written more than 60 years before it to convey what is, essentially, a quite strange and awkward love story. Fifty Shades of Grey leans heavily on the beautiful, the superficial, and the stale to shock a viewer into thinking that it is edgy. That is a distillment of what I learned about my viewing preferences within the “sex-on-film” category. At the risk of being tautological, I must stress how important a good casting choice is; an actor must be able to act because a role worth filling requires more than a model. Given the option, I will take the odd and curious connection over a hollow presentation of pretty, shiny things.