Source Material
Title: Fifty Shades of Grey (Fifty Shades #1)
Author: E.L. James
Published: 2011
Series: Fifty Shades
Happy Valentine’s Day! At FYA, there’s nothing we won’t do for you, including incur liver damage while watching Fifty Shades of Grey brought to life. And because anything worth doing is worth doing right*, correspondents from both Austin and San Francisco worked on providing you with the hard-hitting journalism that you so richly deserve.
* I begged my book club to go with me. I could not face this alone.
We watched it so that you don’t have to — but in case you decide to do a little hate-watching of your own, there’s also a drinking game.
Like any good reporters, we came prepared with the proper tools.
A flask, for drinking. A tie, for strangling oneself if necessary.
Kandis and Kristin got ties from the Alamo Drafthouse: clever marketing, existential eject button, or both?
A notepad, because we wouldn’t want to forget a thing. Caution: leave drunk-writing in the dark to the professionals.
Jennie
The San Francisco contingent agrees with Austin: the movie itself actually wasn’t as bad as we expected, although it was in no way, shape, or form sexy. Dakota Johnson’s nipples are the uncredited third and fourth stars of the movie; I saw them so often I felt that we were old war comrades. There were an absurd amount of nipple close-ups, to the point where I was pretty sure they contained the wizened face of a crone. “We’re in this together,” they seemed to say. Great.
The rumors are all true; Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan have all the chemistry of an exhausted mother and the tenth dirty diaper of the day. For his part, Jamie Dornan is the most beautiful sentient piece of cardboard you’ve ever seen. In the opening scene, featuring a be-hoodied Christian Grey running, the girls behind us said, “This turns me on more than his face will.” I guess if you like chiseled men who subscribe to the Joey Tribbiani “I Smelled A Fart” School of Acting, he wasn’t bad. (Yes, I know he’s supposed to be a good actor in The Fall, but there was no evidence of that here.)
The true injustice of this movie is that people stole Ana’s food from her twice, as she was eating it. The entire theater literally gasped, and I knew that I was among my people. Flog your sex partners all you want, but do not mess with a girl’s food.
Generally, the movie was stupid but inoffensive until the last sex scene, which Ana clearly did not enjoy.
Also, we were treated to the trailer for the latest Nicholas Sparks work of staggering genius, called, I shit you not, The Longest Ride. Choice lines included “HIS RIDING DAYS ARE OVER,” and “WE COME FROM SUCH DIFFERENT WORLDS.” I am probably going to hate-watch the shit out of that when it comes to Netflix.
Drink of Choice: Tequila.
Was It Enough?: No.
Kandis
I had my first drink before I even walked into the theater, since I was expecting an epic train wreck, and the idea of watching the cardboard equivalent of Bella Swan sampling S&M required fortification. Considering everything I’d heard about the books, and the hilarious disaster of a movie press tour, I was really surprised to find the movie wasn’t as terrible as I expected. That is possibly the most glowing review they’ll receive. Please, feel free to use that on the DVD cover, Universal. I definitely took a sip every time Anastasia said something painfully naive, every time the camera forced me to become far more acquainted with Dakota Johnson’s breasts than was necessary, and every time Jamie Dornan did or said something that I was ashamed to find sexy. I have Jamie Dornan issues that would best be worked out in therapy. Okay, so I lost track of how many times I took a drink. I give the movie four wine glasses. Because that’s how many drinks it took me to get through it.
Drink of Choice: White wine .
Was It Enough?: No.
The Official FYA Fifty Shades of Grey Drinking Game
Take one sip when:
- You think, “Don’t do it, girl!”
- Christian looks constipated.
- Ana bites her lip.
Take two sips when:
- You see a gray tie.
- Ana says something stupid.
- Ana repeats anything Christian says.
Take a shot when:
- Ana gets spanked. One per spanking, if you’ve conditioned your liver appropriately.
- You become intimately familiar with someone’s body hair.
Chug:
- Whenever you hear a shade of gray mentioned (including Steele).
- During the entire contract scene.
- Every time you wish you were drunker.
How much can you expect to drink? Well, we counted 25 instances of constipation-face and 12 bitten lips alone, so make sure you prepare appropriately.
San Francisco survivors.
Did you see it? What did you think?
