I missed the boat on Valentine’s Day (in so many ways), but I’ve never been good at schedules.
But last week also marked another momentous occasion: The release of the biggest budget fan film ever made: 50 Shades Of Grey.
Bored housewives all over the world have dogeared the hell out of these books, many of them not realizing that they had already read the books when they were about a vampire and a high school girl. They also don’t realize that they paid for three books just to read the same sex scene over and over and over again.
Whether they knew that or not, the books are still terrible and they still show a relationship that is just as abusive, if not more so, than the source material. This story gives BSD&M a bad name.
Here’s a double feature of films that are nearly as messed up, but show genuine emotion and character development within that framework.
SECRETARY (2002)
Directed by Steven Shainberg
Written by Erin Cressida Wilson/Steven Shainberg
Based on a short story by Mary Gaitskill
Let’s start with a BSD&M classic. This movie has it all. It’s sexy, it’s “taboo,” it’s romantic…and it’s got some pretty serious bondage going on.
Lee Holloway (Maggie Gyllenhaal) is a timid cutter who gets a job with the strangest lawyer in town, Edward Grey. (BWAAAHHH-HA-HA-HA-HA!!!!!!) Grey (James Spader) notices that Lee is not the best secretary in the world…but this turns him on for some reason. And he starts to give her orders that aren’t necessarily office friendly.
And it goes on from there.
This is one of the sexiest movies of the early 2000s and it made James Spader an unlikely sex symbol years after he tried so hard in the 80s. It also turned Maggie Gyllenhaal into a thinking man’s dream. Lee and Grey are dysfunctional. They both have intimacy issues and they seem to only be able to love someone who hurts them. There’s no denying that, but they have genuine feelings for each other. They found the perfect match and they know it.
Secretary is a beautiful, sexy and funny film about two people who find the perfect copacetic relationship. They find out that their “weird” fetishes can set them free, not imprison them in shame.
And that’s what makes love so amazing.
QUILLS (2000)
Directed by Philip Kaufman
Written by Doug Wright
Based on a play by Doug Wright
We might as well go all the way back to the original (in name only) sadist, the Marquis de Sade (Geoffrey Rush). The film takes place while de Sade is in an asylum for his “crimes.” He makes friends with the head of the asylum, Abbe du Coulmier (Joaquin Phoenix) and a young laundry girl named Maddy (Kate Winslet). When the Abbe finds out that de Sade’s works are being published on the sly, he explodes.
The person who is sent to investigate is Dr Royer-Collard (Michael Caine), a cruel prude of a man who has a quite sadistic secret himself. After the doctor takes over the asylum, he and the Abbe will stop at nothing to keep de Sade from writing his “filth.” But he’ll go to greater lengths to get his prose into the world.
Meanwhile, Maddy is learning the ways of the world from de Sade’s writing that she’s smuggling out of the asylum. And the doctor’s young wife has a few tricks up her own long sleeves.
Quills isn’t a very accurate portrayal of de Sade or even his works, but it is a great story of lust, greed, hypocrisy and truly unrequited love. And every actor is at the top of their game here. Kaufman
So what have we learned today, boys and girls?
Sex is amazing, but only if you embrace it and make it a part of who you are. If you suppress it and fight against it, it will eat you alive, making you a terrible person, like Royer-Collard or the pretender to the Throne of Grey.
