Fifty Shades Darker edges closer to parody than scintillation

Dakota Johnson and Jaime Dornan in Fifty Shades Darker. Image courtesy Universal Pictures.

Sometimes deciphering the difference between parody and sincerity is a fool's errand. A movie like Fifty Shades Darker is almost impossible to evaluate for this reason; using simple degrees of good and bad is difficult if viewers don’t know if the movie brilliantly incompetent or incompetently brilliant. What parts of this movie were intended by the filmmakers to be humorous because they're bad, and what parts of this movie try to be good but are still awful anyway? Are the filmmakers perpetually in on the joke of what they're doing or has the joke entered orbit above their heads?

I debated those questions with a friend who came to the screening with me, and I am not completely sure one way or the other, although I do have my suspicions based in part on the series history. The first film of the series, Fifty Shades of Grey, is a sincerely awful film carried modestly by Dakota Johnson's performance as the quiet heroine/Bella Swan ripoff Anastasia Steele. Fifty Shades Darker has many of the same problems of its predecessor, particularly sloppy dialog, a dreadful lead performance by Jamie Dornan and a childish view of the sexual content it showcases. Fifty Shades Darker also sports a less than stellar turn by Johnson, who doesn't appear to care all that much about her character or anything else around her.

It shares the same problems, but not necessarily in the same way as Fifty Shades of Grey. There is no plot beyond Christian and Ana reconnecting after parting ways in the first film: Everything else involves sex, visiting Christian's family (including Marcia Gay Harden and Rita Ora), more sex, unwanted sexual advances by Ana's boringly handsome boss Jack (Eric Johnson), additional awkward sex, some inane arguments resolved far too quickly, even more sex, some drama with a stilted ex, another round of sex, visits from Ana's old friends, and fireworks that symbolize sex. Structuring a cohesive, interesting narrative around that is close to impossible, and dragging that all out for nearly two hours is a cinematic crime. And even the parts in which there is an iota of narrative cohesion are hindered by an overarching lack of logic and, again, the dialog. That last point is one of the oddest parts of Fifty Shades Darker, with conversations starting but either  never coming to a satisfactory ending or getting returned to several scenes later without context as to why, for example, Ana would be upset with Christian but never bring up that point during breakfast. It is almost inconceivably sloppy, so close to being purely idiotic by the filmmakers it could, perhaps, be intentional.

And now we're back to the question of whether this is meant to be serious at all or a joke at the expense of Fifty Shades of Grey. Academy Award winners Harden and Kim Basinger each vamp up their fleeting moments on screen, offering one of the rare times in cinema one Oscar winner will slap the heck out of another in a beautifully campy moment. There is so much camp to be found in Fifty Shades Darker, from the Harden/Basinger slap to Jack's melodramatic scene at the end to some awkward images of extras clearly aware of the mischief Ana and Christian are getting into right behind them. It's tough to call this film properly over the top; doing so would indicate there is some max capacity that clearly does not exist in Fifty Shades Darker. Gauging whether or not those little inklings are done with a wink and a nod or a straight face remains tricky to parse out.

In thinking about it, I tend to edge closer to it being somewhat knowing but largely bad in an unintentional way. Those script issues are too severe to be intentional – even parodies have a grasp on basic narrative concepts – and the lack of effort Johnson and Dornan put in their performances feels more intentionally lazy than purposefully terrible. It is bad enough though to earn a large number of guffaws from audience members over how ludicrous the movie is in its entirety and from one scene to the next. Fifty Shades Darker isn't worth shelling out $12 for a ticket, but it would be great to watch with some friends to laugh at the poorly constructed and salaciously milquetoast saga of Christian and Ana.

Review: Two out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: R

Run time: 118 minutes

Genre: Drama

Ask Away

Target audience: Anyone who read the books or liked the first movie.

Take the whole family?: I'm going to say no for this one.

Theater or Netflix?: Stream it with some wine and friends.

What else is off about this film?: One thing that does bug me is the way the movie treats Anastasia. After leaving Christian, she is depicted at first as a woman who has her priorities in order and knows what she wants out of her second relationship with Christian. The independence ends in the first act when she starts to cede to Christian's whims and reverting back to who she was in the last film, which is rather frustrating.

Watch this instead?: Even with how ridiculous this film is, it still falls short of the insane brilliance that is Tommy Wiseau's The Room. Also worth a watch for people looking for enjoyable bad cinema is the Jennifer Lopez vehicle The Boy Next Door, which is ridiculous on so many levels.