“Fifty Shades of Grey” author E.L. James should count her blessings as she counts her millions. 
 
 Her best-selling book — which, despite its popularity, is pretty rough source material — was stripped of its worst parts and turned into a surprisingly warm screenplay by Kelly Marcel (“Saving Mr. Banks”). 
 
 The director of the much-anticipated adaptation, Sam Taylor-Johnson, made what could have been a trashy TV movie into well-conceived cinema. 
 
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 And James’s heroine, Anastasia Steele — a character who spends much of the “Fifty” trilogy rambling on about her “inner goddess” and her obsession with her controlling boyfriend — is turned into a human by Dakota Johnson, a comedic actress who manages to make the character seem like someone worth knowing. 
 
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 It’s Johnson who saves the day as Ana, a graduating college senior who is sent to interview the dapper and brooding 27-year-old billionaire Christian Grey. The loner businessman tells Ana that his tastes are “singular.” By that he means he likes S&M. He’s a dominant in search of a submissive who will take orders and spankings in the “red room” of his penthouse, which is stocked with toys for pleasure and pain. 
 
 Critics of James’s books have said that the S&M in the story is laughable. Maybe so. Christian succumbs to cuddling almost as often as he spanks. 
 
 The sex in the movie follows a similar path. “Fifty” has more sex scenes than your typical R-rated film, but the content isn’t any more shocking than what’s on cable. Shows like “Sons of Anarchy” and “Outlander” have just as many bare butts and tight shots of intercourse. 
 
 Really, the sexiest parts of the film aren’t the sex scenes (which sort of become tedious), but rather the banter between Ana and Christian as they set the terms of their relationship. 
 
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 Johnson (daughter of Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson), who charmed with shrugs and eye-rolls on the short-lived Fox comedy “Ben and Kate,” helps turn James’s tale into an unexpected romantic comedy. The best vignettes have her fully clothed and working to get a laugh out of Christian, played with awkwardness by Irish actor Jamie Dornan. 
 
 Dornan isn’t unlikable, but his Christian comes off as an angry geek as opposed to a cool guy. His discomfort — and constant constipation face — doesn’t help with chemistry, but it does turn Christian Grey into a guy who could exist. Whereas James’s Christian is superhuman with a dash of “American Psycho,” Dornan’s version is a just a 27-year-old introvert pretending to be bad. He’s the least dominant dominant — a guy who’d much prefer to be told what to do. 
 
 It’s only when Christian becomes the star of the story that the film starts to get tiresome. The second half is too focused on why Mr. Grey is such a bummer. Even Ana starts to look bored. 
 
 For those who don’t know, the real source material here is actually “Twilight,” the young adult vampire series by Stephenie Meyer. James’s three-part S&M saga started out as fan fiction based on Meyer’s stories. Anastasia Steele is the clumsy heroine inspired by Bella Swan. Christian Grey is James’s Edward Cullen (he’s into spanking as opposed to blood sucking). 
 
 Watching the adaptation of “Fifty” makes it clear how much the story borrows from “Twilight,” specifically the films. The first big shot of Johnson has her dressed as if she’s wearing a Kristen Stewart costume for Halloween. Later, a scene in which Ana meets her friend Jose (the “Fifty Shades” version of Taylor Lautner’s Jacob) looks like a knockoff -- the “Twilight” version of “Grease 2.” 
 
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 Ana and Christian’s first big sex scene is set to a haunting song by Sia, who also performed the tune that plays when Bella and Edward get engaged in the third installment of “Twilight.” 
 
 The parallels aren’t a problem — fans of the vampire franchise will be thrilled. James’s fans should be, too. It was “Twilight,” after all, that hooked them in the first place. 
 
 Watch the trailer: 
 
 Meredith Goldstein can be reached at Meredith.Goldstein@Globe.com ||||| In a tearful courtroom confession, a daughter has admitted using the best-selling sadomasochistic sex novel Fifty Shades of Grey as the basis for a series of false rape claims against her father. 
 
 Defence barrister Cathy McCulloch had, she said, never read the novel until she was called in late to defend the father, who was accused of eight incestuous rapes over a six-year period. 
 
 In her blog about the case, Ms McCulloch said the prospects for the father initially looked bleak. 
 
 “His daughter had given a compelling interview to the police and my client had absolutely no real defence other than ‘I did not do it’,” she wrote. 
 
 The only unusual thing about the interview was that in describing what her father had supposedly done and how her body had allegedly felt, she had used “certain words, phrases and descriptions which seemed beyond her years.” 
 
 Nothing might have come of this quirk, however, were it not for the fact that during Ms McCulloch’s otherwise routine first meeting with the father – on the day of the trial – he happened to mention that his daughter’s favourite book was “about a millionaire who takes a young woman under his wing and ‘teaches her about art’.” 
 
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 1/23 Fifty Shades of Grey film stills Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan as Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey during a Fifty Shades sex scene Chuck Zlotnick 
 
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 5/23 Fifty Shades of Grey film stills Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson as Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele in her hardware shop 
 
 6/23 Fifty Shades of Grey film stills Fifty Shades of Grey has just under 20 minutes of sex scenes Chuck Zlotnick 
 
 7/23 Fifty Shades of Grey film stills Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson) with her mother Carla (Jennifer Ehle) in Fifty Shades of Grey Chuck Zlotnick 
 
 8/23 Fifty Shades of Grey film stills Sam Taylor-Johnson, Jamie Dornan and Dakota discuss the filming of Fifty Shades of Grey on set Universal 
 
 9/23 Fifty Shades of Grey film stills Oscar winner Marcia Gay Harden stars as Dr Grace Trevelyan Grey in Fifty Shades of Grey Chuck Zlotnick 
 
 10/23 Fifty Shades of Grey film stills Anastasia Steele's best friend Kate, played by Eloise Mumford, in Fifty Shades of Grey Chuck Zlotnick 
 
 11/23 Fifty Shades of Grey film stills Dakota Johnson lets out a brief moan in Christian Grey's bed Universal 
 
 12/23 Fifty Shades of Grey film stills Christian cradles Ana Universal 
 
 13/23 Fifty Shades of Grey film stills Dakota Johnson holds a pencil seductively as Anastasia Steele Universal 
 
 14/23 Fifty Shades of Grey film stills Ana Steele and Christian Grey have an 'interesting' relationship 
 
 15/23 Fifty Shades of Grey film stills Mr Grey will see you now: Christian Grey introduces Anastasia Steele into the world of S&M Universal 
 
 16/23 Fifty Shades of Grey film stills Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson as Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele in a hardware store 
 
 17/23 Fifty Shades of Grey film stills Jamie Dornan stars as protagonist Christian Grey Universal 
 
 18/23 Fifty Shades of Grey film stills Dakota Johnson stars as Anastasia Steele Universal 
 
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 20/23 Fifty Shades of Grey film stills Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson pictures together as Christian and Anastasia Universal 
 
 21/23 Fifty Shades of Grey film stills Dakota Johnson stars as innocent student Anastasia Steelee Universal 
 
 22/23 Fifty Shades of Grey film stills Jamie Dornan as playboy billionaire Christian Grey 
 
 23/23 Fifty Shades of Grey film stills Jamie Dornan stars as Christian Grey Universal 
 
 “He had no idea what Fifty Shades of Grey was about,” added Ms McCulloch. “Neither I nor my instructing solicitor’s representative had read the book (honest!).” 
 
 The solicitor’s representative bought the book, which has sold more than 125 million copies worldwide and been turned into a film, and found “too many striking similarities between the [daughter’s police interview] and the book to be a coincidence.” 
 
 Ms McCulloch, a former police officer who is now a barrister at Church Court Chambers, persuaded the judge to adjourn the case so she could spend an afternoon and an evening reading the novel. 
 
 Within seven minutes of her beginning her cross-examination, the daughter burst into tears in the witness box and admitted she had made the whole thing up to teach her strict father a lesson. 
 
 Does Fifty Shades Of Grey normalise domestic abuse? 
 
 Describing a cross-examination she had expected to last between two and three hours, Ms McCulloch wrote: “I started gently to put the complainant at ease. She agreed her father was strict, and that she was really annoyed with him for “ruining her life”. 
 
 “I then went straight to my final question – that she was so angry with her father that she had made this all up. She wavered. 
 
 “I raised the striking similarities between her interview and the book. She suddenly broke and said I was absolutely right. She had made the whole thing up because she was angry with her father and wanted to teach him a lesson. 
 
 “I asked her whether she had got all the ideas from Fifty Shades of Grey. She confirmed this book, and others – which she named. After seven minutes we were finished. 
 
 “The Judge directed the jury to acquit, stating that this case is “unique” in the whole of his career at the Bar and Judiciary.”
– After 50 million different rumors, the Internet has its answer as to who will play Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey on the big screen: Anastasia is none other than Dakota Johnson, the 24-year-old daughter of Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith, and perhaps previously best known for Fox sitcom Ben & Kate, and minor roles in The Social Network and The Five-Year Engagement. "I am delighted to let you know that the lovely Dakota Johnson has agreed to be our Anastasia in the film adaptation of Fifty Shades of Grey," tweeted author EL James this morning. James later tweet-dropped: "the gorgeous and talented Charlie Hunnam" as the actor who would portray Grey. Click for more Social Network alums working on the project.