Jamie Dornan is 50 Shades of Grey only saving grace

The S&M trilogy 50 Shades of Grey has barely been out of the press, off the internet or out of our minds since it was published in 2011. It titillated bored housewives, sexless mothers and virginal girls. The rest of us just rolled our eyes at how truly awful the whole thing is. Soup to nuts.

So when the delectable Jamie Dornan was cast as the book's protagonist in the movie adaptation of FSOG, more than a little part of me cheered. Not only was he brilliant as psychopathic serial killer Paul Spector in BBC drama The Fall, he also looks like this:

And to be honest, that's where it begins and ends with FSOG. The movie is as bad as the books. For a man who's so rich and ambitious, the movie isn't very glamorous. Christian Grey's flat looked like it had been decorated by Barratt Homes. And I don't know if British author EL James was au fait with Seattle, but it's hardly the most majestic of cities.

The critics were right, there was zero chemistry between Dakota Johnson, who plays the book's heroine Anastasia Steele and Jamie Dornan, which is weird because he looks like this:

As with the book, the main issue with this movie is that I can't see why Christian Grey (a wealthy, successful, good looking, sexually powerful, cold, detached and damaged man) would be interested in Anastasia. She's not beautiful, intelligent, funny, vivacious or insightful. She's just wet and pathetic. 

She spends the whole time being scared. And despite the fact that Christian has broken ranks to be photographed with her, takes her out on dates, moves her into his apartment and introduces her to his family, she still wants more from him. She doesn't really understand that there is something severely broken in Christian - hence why he enjoys repeatedly whacking her with a belt buckle. So she's never going to get the fairytale romance she reads about in Jane Austen novels, no matter how much she bites her lip.

I got really annoyed with uber feminists going on and on about how this movie glamourises domestic violence. This movie isn't about domestic violence, BDSM is consensual between adults who find sexual gratification in pain. Actually this book and movie is just deeply misogynistic. 

A pitiful, mediocre and negligible girl is swept off her feet by an unsuitable, but powerful man. And although *spoiler alert* she eventually walks away, it's not for a good reason. And she kinda asked for it. She doesn't walk away when he demands control over her food, clothes and whereabouts. She doesn't mind that he sells her car without asking her or has workmen come over to install her brand new Mac. Nor did she raise an eyebrow when a man she met once randomly showed up to take her away from a bar where she was getting drunk with friends.

I only got half way through the first book before its over-sexed, 13 year old girl tone got right royally on my tits, so I got rid of it. The DYSP equivalent of Joey Tribbiani putting a scary book in the freezer. The film was much the same, however it wasn't romantic enough, it wasn't clever enough, it wasn't ostentatious enough and there wasn't enough naked sexing by someone who looks like this:

So now EL James is going to treat us to another instalment of this woeful piece of literature - undoing centuries of good work by Wilde, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Dickens, Beckett, Thomas, Austen, Bronte, McEwan, Banks, Tolkin... etc. who all did wonders in establishing Britain as a literary powerhouse - I hope that the next one has a more a powerful and progressive female lead. And believable storyline. And literate. And a whole lot more of this: