An English major, Anastasia Steele offers to travel to Seattle to interview a mysterious 27-year-old billionaire as a favor to her journalism major roommate. And so she meets the taciturn Christian Grey, who falls for her and sets about winning her over. Intrigued and seduced, Ana discovers that there is nothing vanilla about the man: a dominator and sadist, he wants her to sign a contract to own her and regulate their twisted encounters…

Picture gallery

Either you’ve been waiting to see 50 Shades of Grey since devouring the book, or you’re still wondering what all the fuss is about. Unsurprisingly, Sam Taylor-Johnson’s movie is targeted towards the first category. Conventional, lukewarm, sometimes intriguing and often grotesque, the adaptation of the bestseller by E. L. James is extreme only in its reputation, which has been fueled by months of promotion and buzz. Neither bad nor memorable, this first installment in the adventures of Christian and Ana are like a vague alternative to the classic romantic comedy, with the S&M being just another cog in the machine. 50 Shades of Grey therefore fluctuates between parody and seriousness in the span of two seemingly endless hours, in which joyrides and superficial secondary characters are there only to turn a racy bedroom adventure into a flashy super-production. The only light in this black hole of a movie: Dakota Johnson, daughter of Melanie Griffiths and Don Johnson, who comes out surprisingly well in a role that is not easy.