Ria's Writing: The Hottest Moment in the Fifty Shades Freed Movie

After my last rather heavy and serious post, I thought I'd lighten things up around here. I was trying to think of a suitable topic and happened to be watching the unrated version of Fifty Shade Freed. Then the perfect subject hit me: what I considered the hottest moment in the movie. I think many people might be surprised. And no, it's not when they get frisky with Ben & Jerry's.

First off, I am an unabashed Fifty Shades fan—the books, not the movies. And those of you that are groaning or appalled can bite me. Really, please do, I'll enjoy it. But seriously, despite all the criticism about the poor quality of the writing, the whole BDSM controversy, and the claims that it glamorizes the abuse of women, I found it highly entertaining and enjoyable. It's the chemistry between Anna and Christian that gets me every time.

Fifty Shades isn't about BDSM; that's a red herring. It's about a broken, damaged man finding a woman who shows him how to embrace love. And who can't get behind that? Yes, he makes mistakes getting there—namely pushing his desires on Anna instead of exploring where her innate sexuality led. That's what a proper Dom would do. I don't think anyone in the community would consider Anna and Christian a good example of a healthy Dom/sub relationship. At least, not at the beginning.

The whole point is that he's flawed and his path to redemption is the heart of good storytelling. Well-written characters, like people, are imperfect and make mistakes. In romances, they learn from them, evolve, and ultimately live happily ever after. That reassurance is why I love the genre above all others. Don't get me wrong, I read a wide variety of things, but you can't beat a good romance to escape gritty reality for a while.

By the way, good Dominants are human and make mistakes too. There's a good podcast about this topic by Kayla Lords on Loving BDSM. You can check it out here.

I also really enjoyed the way E. L. James turned the Twilight series into an erotic romance. That was the initial reason I read it. Yes, I was curious about what was causing so much fuss. But when I heard that Fifty Shades started out as Twilight fan fiction, I had to see how she managed that without being sued for copyright infringement.

And yes, I was a fan of the Twilight series too—you can keep groaning, I really don't care—mainly for the same reason I love Fifty Shades. There's nothing better than palpable chemistry between characters. And the banter between Bella and Edward was addictive.

Anyway, back to the movie. Let's face it, the movies were never going to do the books justice. Movie adaptations rarely do. The one notable exception I can think of is The Da Vinci Code. That was way better as a movie. Frankly, I found the book little more than a dissertation disguised as a novel.

Still, I wanted to see how well the books were translated into mainstream movies. Of all of them, I think Fifty Shades Darker comes the closest to capturing the essence of the book. The pool table scene being a good example—although, I dearly missed the part where he spanks her with a ruler. Sigh, I would have loved to see that.

I admit that I was one of those people who wasn't happy about Jamie Dornan being cast as Christian Grey. But he's grown on me over the years. I really enjoyed him as the kinky serial killer in The Fall. It's available for binge watching on Netflix. Fair warning: if you haven't seen the series, it's not for the faint of heart.

Which brings us to what I consider the hottest moment in Fifty Shade Freed. It's the scene in Aspen when Jamie Dornan is playing the piano and singing. Oh. My. God. His hotness quotient went up exponentially after I saw that scene. Okay, I have a thing for musicians—or rather, male musicians with panty-melting voices. I never really understood the whole women throwing their panties at musicians thing—Tom Jones, for example. Now I get it. If you cream them, you should have them.

I don't really know if that was him playing the piano, but it was definitely Jamie Dornan singing Paul McCartney's "Maybe I'm Amazed." I had no clue that he could sing. Apparently, he was in a boy band in his youth. Go figure.

In my opinion, the movie studio could have saved a lot of money and hassle with the ratings board if they just had Jamie Dornan singing for the whole two hours. Of course, him being naked while singing would have been even better. Full frontal would probably be asking too much, but hey, a girl can dream.

Here's the all too short clip for your viewing pleasure.