[If you’ve read the book, then you should not mind the spoilers in this review.]

Sometimes you look forward so much to a Movie that you cast aside the bad reviews. This was how I felt about the Fifty Shades Movie. I have to admit though that the critics were right.

First of all, Dakota Johnson put in a rather good performance at playing Anastasia Steele, a naive and vulnerable college graduate who at the same time was sexually curious and adventurous. She showed what faking it good in the bedroom Looked like, although sometimes it was a little forced and exaggerated.

Jamie Dornan was disappointing though. I wanted to be awed by his Christian Grey, but he didn’t come off as demanding and assertive as I imagined the character to be. He may have looked sexy and seductive squinting or simply staring at the camera, but that was it. To me, Dornan was unconvincing in his acting as a billionaire who always got what he wanted, and looked uncomfortable with his authority in some scenes.

At times, the way he delivered his lines was more wooden than the cool cucumber that the steely Grey was meant to be. In the movie, he smiled a goofy smile as he stood by the helicopter waiting for Anastasia and then opened door for her to get in, making him look like a gawky teenager who had recently started working as a butler and who seemed eager to please. Then he ambled round, instead of strutting or striding, to his side to climb into the cockpit. He also looked like he was sorry to intrude when he showed up in Georgia to interrupt Anastasia’s outing with her mother. In short, he was acting like he wasn’t at ease with his station in life.

In his interviews, Dornan shows himself as a lovable decent human being which explains why he was uneasy with some of the scenes he had to shoot. Perhaps this former Calvin Klein model and his acclaimed golden torso should stick to just posing and looking good in front of the camera instead of acting in a role that he obviously wasn’t comfortable with.

The story called for a mentally twisted man, and I wanted to watch one on the screen. In the end, it was Anastasia who appeared more twisted to me. But if nothing else, I learnt from this movie that regardless of how old or accomplished you are, your saintly dear mother could still walk in on you doing the dirty, even if she didn’t live with you.