The sleek, dry style made even the most adventurous sexual acts seem ludicrous

The sleek, dry style made even the most adventurous sexual acts seem ludicrous

The previous films made that clear without critiquing it, often by portraying Ana’s distress in the hands of the domineering and uncommunicative Christian (a character who, admittedly, many readers and viewers find attractive). Alternatively, the films’ over-seriousness rendered them self-divided enterprises.

In “Freed,” by contrast, sex is often funny, because Ana wants it that way. She even makes Christian partake in the cliche of licking food off of a partner’s body – in a deliberate echo of the honey-dripping sequence in “9 ? Weeks,” Ana finds a new application for Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and turns that famous sexual game into a more reciprocal exchange than it was in Adrian Lyne’s film. (Kim Basinger’s cameo in “Darker” and “Freed” as Elena, Christian’s long-ago sexual obsession, cinches the connection.) At this point, who would have thought that a “Fifty Shades” film, supposedly interested in the very alternative kind of sexual experimentation, would provide enjoyable (and maybe for some, even exciting) sequences of respectful and playful foreplay and oral sex? [Read more…]