Well, This Is What I Think

Wellthisiswhatithink has a confession to make: we have not read Fifty Shades of Grey, nor its sequels.

We have nothing, per se, against Dominant-Submissive kinkyness if it’s what floats yer boat, we just simply can’t abide poorly-written prose.

There’s too much good prose we don’t get time to read as it is. Let alone finding time for our true love, poetry.

So many people whose opinions we respect have assured us that the series is awful that we really can’t be bothered to set ourselves up for disappointment, no matter how many bedside tables the books have ended up on, discretely hidden beneath the Sunday papers.

(The same is admittedly not true of our TV viewing habits. In Chez Wellthisiswhatithink, we breathlessly await the next in the Spartacus series, which presumably will be called something like “Spartacus: Sorry, The Hero Died In The Last Series, So There’s No Attempt At A Story, Just Plenty Of Tits and Blood All Over The Screen”. Hoo-hah. I strongly suspect the next series of Game of Thrones, with half the cast now slaughtered, will be similarly enjoyable.)

However, despite our misgivings FSOG (as it is known by the cogniscenti) has captivated its (mainly female) audience, and I suppose anything that prompts people to read is a “Good Thing” (capital G, capital T), and anything that simultaneously encourages people to be less uptight about sex is a “Very Good Thing” (capital V, G and T).

(Actually, contradicting ourselves promptly, we admit we even quite enjoyed the Twilight saga while conceding to anyone who asked why we had our head buried in them that the books were not great literature. Then again, and that said, we could hardly turn a page without wanting to throttle the ever-more-pathetic Bella Swann, a desire which transferred instantly to her on-screen avatar, Kristen Stewart.)

We will also, Dear Reader, gloss over the fact that fire brigades everywhere are being called to suburban homes to free people who have locked themselves to the bed in handcuffs and then forgotten that they’ve left the key out of reach. (Hang on a minute, guys. Aren’t you supposed to be doing this with someone? Ed.)

Such is the price, one supposes, of life imitating art, imitating life, er …

Anyhow: on effort alone we should say “well done” to authoress EJ James, who must be, by now, a very wealthy lady indeed, and get onto the point of this story.

The point of the story is that after months of fevered speculation, we now know the two major leads for the much-touted movie, at least.

Dakota Johnson, who appeared in The Social Network and 21 Jump Street as well as the Fox show Ben and Kate, has been officially cast as Anastasia Steele. Her male counterpart, Christian Grey, will be played by none other than Charlie Hunnam, star of Pacific Rim and Sons of Anarchy.

The film is set for an August 2014 release, with a screenplay by Kelly Marcell. Despite the story obviously including a vast raft of sexual matter, the team working on the movie are determined to ensure it achieves an “R” (not “X”) rating in North America.

While women have been breathlessly awaiting the identity of Christian Grey, almost as much interest has been generated by the choice of Ms. Johnson to play his submissive virgin lover.

Her first notable screen role was in the multi-Academy Award-winning 2010 feature The Social Network and subsequent films include the upcoming feature Need for Speed, 21 Jump Street, and Universal Pictures’ The Five-Year Engagement. She also starred as Kate in the Fox Network comedy series Ben and Kate, which aired during the 2012-2013 season, and is currently shooting the feature film Cymbeline.

Former model Johnson is the daughter of Miami Vice star Don Johnson and Oscar-nominated actress Melanie Griffith, and had her screen debut with her mother in the 1999 film Crazy in Alabama.

Anyway, they’re both very pretty, which I’m sure is all that most of the audience will be worrying about. When it comes out we are equally sure it will mercilessly panned by critics, and go on to make squillions.

The roles were apparently two of the most desired of the current season, and the producers have received some praise for casting relatively un-known actors (we did say, relatively) to do the heavy lifting for the forecast blockbuster.

Meanwhile, other producers will have to wait awhile before capitalising on the young talent’s sudden super-stardom.

Word is, they’re going to be tied up for a bit.

(Sorry. Ed.)