The Fifty Shades of Grey film based on the best-selling erotic novel by EL James premiered at Dublin's Light House Cinema on Thursday.
It’s a classic billionaire-meets-girl tale, in which Christian Grey (Belfast-actor Jamie Dornan) woos Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson) with fine wines, well-cut suits, private helicopters and a custom-made sex-dungeon (aka “The Red Room of Pain”).
As you do.
Outside the cinema, as local children do imitations of people on the red carpet, no-one is brandishing whips or chains – some US cinemas have banned such accessories – but small groups of women and occasional, uncomfortable-looking men, gather.
Competition winners Anna-Marie O’Shea and Theresa O’Donovan have dressed up for the evening and are hopeful they might see Dornan (sadly, none of the stars of the film are due to appear).
“My daughter gave the books to me,” says O’Shea. “We’re very close. She’s obsessed with them!”
But what’s so great about them? She laughs. “I don’t think it would be suitable for the paper.”
Karen McGregor is here with a large group of women. What does she like about the book?
“It’s very . . . ” she pauses, “detailed.”
“She got knocked up because of it,” says her friend Siobhan Reilly (McGregor is pregnant).
They discuss its literary merits. “The story itself is very good,” says Reilly. “But the writing is very poor.”
What did they think of all the S&M stuff?
“Some people are into that, I suppose,” says McGregor’s mother Linda Houlihan.
“I hope you’re not into it, mam!” says McGregor with horror.
Lorna McGeever and Ciara O’Sullivan think the filmmakers aren’t going to be able to show all the scenes from the book.
“Like what?” I ask innocently.
They describe a scene.
Yes. I’m confident it’s not going to be in the film.
Friends Margaret Harnett and Michelle Reid haven’t yet read the books. “We don’t care what the film is like,” says Harnett. “We just want to see Jamie Dornan.”
“The film’s had a mixed reaction but I’m dying to see it,” says Reid.
Were they aware of all the [I cough uncomfortably] S&M stuff? “I’m going to find out things tonight I didn’t know about,” says Harnett. “I’m going to learn!”
“Having said that, she probably invented it,” says Reid proudly. They both laugh.
“My bloke says to me, ‘put those books on the shelf, you and I are better,’” says Harnett.
Broadcaster and publisher Norah Casey hasn’t read the books either, despite being sent a special edition with a pair of handcuffs. She’s here for “a nice night out and a bit of fun”.
“I never read the books,” she says, “but my mother did and so did all my friends. It was probably good that I didn’t have to go through the torturous ordeal of reading them because I think they were a bit turgid at times, but I did get the naughty bits read out to me over a glass of wine on various occasions.”
What does she think the appeal is?
“It’s soft porn,” she says. “There was chick-lit, where the man looked into the woman’s eyes, they cuddled and had a baby and Mills and Boon where there were lots of men with white linen shirts and strong determined jaws, but that was as much as you got. Ladies maybe require a little bit more now.”
