Fifty Shades of Grey (2015)

and the Old Script, Updated

Proof the old scripts are still selling: a billionaire, a contract, gifts, and a woman told what her body meant. Not a page about kink. What it teaches about control in all things, being followed, gifts with rules, "your body tells me something different," a pity play after harm, and the elevator doors closing.

Fifty Shades of Grey (2015). Directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson, screenplay by Kelly Marcel from E. L. James’s novel. Dakota Johnson as Anastasia “Ana” Steele and Jamie Dornan as Christian Grey, with Jennifer Ehle and Marcia Gay Harden.

“Oh, I exercise control in all things, Miss Steele.”

Christian Grey, the first time they meet.

A note before you read. This page discusses a film with sexual content, including a scene in which a woman is hit with a belt, and a scene in which a man tries to kiss a drunk woman against her will. Nothing is described in detail. If something like this happened to you, whatever you called it at the time, RAINN is there any hour at 1-800-656-4673. If someone is hurting you, the National Domestic Violence Hotline is 1-800-799-7233. Every current number is on the Resources page.

This page belongs to On Screen. It is here because of a question readers keep asking: are the old scripts still being sold? This film, a box-office hit that grossed more than $569 million, is the clearest answer on this page. Pygmalion, the makeover, the rescue, the man who knows what she wants better than she does: they’re all here, updated with a helicopter and a contract.

Like every entry on the On Screen page, it reads a story for the pattern it teaches, and makes no claim about anyone’s diagnosis. And one thing needs saying plainly at the start: this page is not about kink. Consenting adults can make whatever agreements they like about what happens between them. The patterns this page reads happen outside that room: at her job, on a visit to her mother, with her car, and around her “no.”

The Story

Ana Steele, 21, a literature student, interviews the billionaire Christian Grey, 27, for her college paper when her roommate is sick. He takes an interest. He turns up at the hardware store where she works. He takes her for coffee, then leaves abruptly, saying he’s not the man for her. He sends her rare first editions.

At a bar after graduation, drunk, she calls him to say she’s returning the books. He comes to find her, just as a friend tries to kiss her against her will. She passes out and wakes up in Christian’s hotel room.

A romance begins. He asks her to sign a non-disclosure agreement, then explains he is a dominant who only has relationships defined by a contract. She is a virgin. She negotiates her own terms. He gives her gifts, including a new car and a laptop. She first says no to the contract, and is persuaded.

When Ana mentions at his parents’ house that she’s going to visit her mother in Georgia, he’s angry, especially when she says she wants more than the one-sided relationship he’s offering. In Georgia, he shows up at the bar where she is, unannounced.

Back in Seattle, still trying to understand him, Ana asks Christian to show her the worst punishment he would use. He hits her with his belt, making her count. Devastated, she tells him she loves him, and that this is unacceptable. He tells her he is too psychologically broken to have the relationship she wants. She leaves him. He tells her he’ll send her a check for the old car he sold without asking her. At the elevator, he says her name, and she answers with his, and the doors close between them.

What It Gets Right

Less than its success suggests, but something. It lets Ana negotiate, ask questions, and say what she wants. It shows a woman deciding, after all of it, that what she’s been shown is unacceptable. And it ends with her leaving.

What It Teaches

1. “I exercise control in all things”

He tells her in their first conversation. It’s played as seductive. It’s also simply true, and the film shows it: her contract would tell her what to eat, how much to drink, which doctor prescribes her contraception, and whom she can sleep with. Her job and her car come into it too.

The Decoder’s Card 37, Concern as Control, is “Surveillance disguised as care.” A contract about her diet and her health, written by him, is that card in a binder.

2. He showed up

Christian turns up at the hardware store where Ana works. When she goes to Georgia to see her mother, he turns up there too, at a bar, without telling her.

The Decoder’s Card P-1, Territorial Hovering, is “Surveillance disguised as involvement,” and its usual setting is work: the partner who can’t let you have a meeting without him. Christian’s version follows her from her job to another state. The film plays both as romance. Being found when you didn’t say where you’d be isn’t romance. It’s a sign someone needs to know.

3. The gifts, and the car

First editions. A new car. A laptop. A helicopter ride. “I never took anyone on a helicopter. Never had sex on my own bed. Never slept next to anyone. Ever. Only you.”

That’s Card 24, Love Bombing: “Excessive flattery and intensity early on.” And at the end, the other side of the gift: he sold her old car without asking her, and offers to send a check. What’s given can be used to decide what’s yours.

4. “But your body tells me something different”

When Ana says she wants to leave dinner and think about the contract, Christian answers: “But your body tells me something different.” Her legs, her breathing, her complexion. She says it might be the wine. He says it’s adrenaline.

She said what she wanted. He told her she meant something else. Many women have heard this, and it’s worth naming plainly: what you say is what counts. Not your blush, not your breathing, not what someone decides your body meant. The Decoder’s Card 44, Boundary Testing, is “Small violations that escalate”; this is how they start.

5. “Too psychologically broken”

After he hurts her, and she tells him it’s unacceptable, his answer isn’t an apology. He tells her he is too psychologically broken to give her the relationship she wants.

The Decoder’s Card 28, The Pity Play, is “Using self-pity to deflect accountability,” and one of its examples is almost word for word: “I’m broken.” It moves the conversation from what he did to what’s wrong with him, and asks her to feel for him instead of for herself. Ana doesn’t take it. She leaves.

6. The elevator

At the elevator, he says her name. She says his, and the doors close.

On its own, this film ends with a woman who was told her body meant yes, who was followed to another state, who was hurt and then asked to pity the man who hurt her, and who walked into an elevator and let the doors close. That’s the ending worth keeping.

The Old Script, Side by Side

	Pretty Woman (1990)	9½ Weeks (1986)	Fifty Shades of Grey (2015)
Who he is	A rich man who buys her time	A man who sets the rules	A billionaire with a contract
What he gives	Clothes, and his world	Clothes, and the rules	First editions, a car, a helicopter
How it ends	He climbs to her window	She walks out	She walks into an elevator

Three films, three decades, the same script: a powerful man, gifts, rules, and a woman who’s supposed to be grateful. The series’ oldest lesson is still selling. Two of these women walked away.

If You Grew Up on This

Many of us read the books, or saw the film with friends, and felt both drawn in and uneasy. Nothing on this page asks you to feel ashamed of either. The useful thing is to look at it clearly from where you stand now.

Some questions to sit with:

Has anyone told you what your body “really” meant, after you said something different?
Has someone shown up where you were, without being told?
Were gifts ever followed by rules?
After someone hurt you, did they ask you to feel sorry for them?
What would your elevator be: the place you’d let the doors close?

The film calls it a love story. On its own, it’s the story of a woman who said “this is unacceptable,” and meant it.

You’re the audience now. What you say is what counts.