thoughts on Fifty Shades of Grey (spoilers)

This is less a review than a piece where I try to work through my thoughts on things.

I tried to read Fifty Shades of Grey a little over a year ago.  I couldn't get through it (though when I went back and looked at the placement of the bookmark in my copy the other day, I saw that I actually made it through quite a lot of it-- over 400 pages, albeit 400 pages read in short bursts of "I guess I'll try to read that book again" determination to try to finish).  I have friends who legitimately liked it and thought it was really hot.  I have friends who found it laughably bad.  I found it pretty bad; the dialogue in Anastasia Steele's first meeting with Christian Grey is written in such a way that when I tried to tell my friends about it, I said something along the lines of, "Yeah, so she's interviewing him for her college newspaper, and his answers to her questions are basically like, 'I'm an important businessman!  I do important businessman things!'" There was also Anastasia's inner monologue, in which she makes repeated references to her "inner goddess."  Then there was my impatience with the contract.  The contract included a lot of things that very few people would agree to, including restrictions on her diet and exercise habits and the stipulation that she stay with him EVERY weekend.  She wasn't signing the contract and it was pretty clear she wasn't going to; my feeling was that she just needed to say no and move on with her life, rather than what she does, which is try to negotiate, eventually agree to it, and then put him off every time it comes time to actually sign it.

The thing I didn't get until after watching the film, however, is that Ana's hesitation to sign the contract isn't mere indecision.  I saw her as having two choices: live with Mr. Grey on his terms or without Mr. Grey on her own terms.  She wants there to be a third choice: live with him in a relationship in which they discuss things and make compromises and both maybe get some things they want and some things they don't want, but are both happy at the end of the day because they're together.  At the end, however, she realizes that no compromise she could make would ever be enough for him; she's not willing to go to the lengths he wants her to go to. 

Upon discussing it with my friends after leaving the movie, it was mentioned that he was very straightforward about how it was going to be and what he wanted from the very beginning.  Yes, he was...but he also actively pursued a relationship with her knowing that she wasn't "into" the same things he was into.  He showed up at her place of work.  He took her out for coffee.  He sent her an expensive graduation gift.  He showed up and took her back to his hotel with him when she made a drunken phone call to him.  He even showed up at her apartment after she read the contract and told him, by e-mail, that the whole thing was off.  He was ALWAYS the one pursuing her, even at the times in the film when he was telling her that it could never work.  Why keep pursuing her?  Because he wants to be with her and expects that she will "come around" to what he wants.

So what we basically have is a couple in which both members enter the relationship knowing that the other person wants completely different things than they do, but hoping that the other person can and will change.  What's more, because of their power dynamic, and because, with the contract, he HAS set up their relationship in "we'll do this my way or you'll completely lose me" terms while continuing to pursue her, she is actually being pressured to change.  This very well-written article considers it interesting and important that she leaves him at the end of the movie; the article discusses it in terms of rejecting the wealthy but ultimately empty lifestyle he offers.  Looking at it through the frame I've been discussing the movie, the end also suggests that they both accept that neither of them can change, and no "compromise" is going to work for them.  However, this is the first in the trilogy, and we know going in that they'll somehow "work it out."  I'll admit that I'm curious to find out how they do so.  I'm just having trouble imagining how they could ever possibly do so, or that it could possibly be a good thing if they did.