It's pretty tempting to blame the men in this movie. They're pretty much all awful, domineering assholes, who, under the guise of empowerment, want to own and control this doe-eyed lady. But if you ask me, the biggest problem is Ana herself. I mean, girl, get it together. When you tell a man you don't want his money and he immediately calls his assistant and transfers $24,000 to your bank account, using details YOU DID NOT GIVE HIM, that's a warning sign. It's not something you playfully quiz him about and then forget 10 minutes later over brunch. Same goes for the stalker he warns you about. That's not something quaint to be ignored. This man fucks with women's bodies and with their heads. Run. This brings us to the most outrageous part of the film, in which (spoiler alert!) Christian asks Ana to marry him. He does this in the middle of the night, after having a nightmare, in what feels more like a needy child wanting to ensure eternal love via contract than a genuine proposal. Even more astonishingly, Ana agrees. But the craziest part of all this is how people around them react to this insanity. Actually they don't react at all — and that's what's nuts. Just imagine you went off to some tropical island for three weeks and your roommate was suddenly engaged to a billionaire she's known for an undetermined, but very short amount of time. I don't know about you, but I would probably take her aside and question her sanity. I would, at the very least, act concerned.

And then there's the sex. The reason we're all here — or so I thought. The sex is not sexy. The so-called BDSM is basically six different variations on missionary. (Not to knock missionary, which is a perfectly respectable position, but still, not groundbreaking.) It also doesn't happen that most of the sex takes place after some egregious violation of consent boundaries. Like the time Christian shows Ana the file he has on her stalker, and she asks to see her own. She's mildly outraged, but then takes her top off. Good talk.