Fifty Shades Of Grey finally finds a director who understands its sexual needs

By Sean O'Neal | June 19, 2013 | 9:53pm

Aux Features Film

Gus Van Sant is no doubt letting out a surprised “Argh!” upon hearing that his dream of directing Fifty Shades Of Grey has been taken by Sam Taylor-Johnson, with Taylor-Johnson forcefully inserting herself into the job with a complete disregard for Van Sant’s feelings in a way that he, and therefore all of us, can’t help but find exciting. Taylor-Johnson, best known for directing Nowhere Boy—though if we’re being honest, she’s even better known for marrying that film’s Aaron Taylor-Johnson when he was 19 and she was 42—landed the adaptation of E.L. James’ porn you can just read on the bus, apparently, beating out several other rumored, far more famous competitors.

Taylor-Johnson's past work in sexuality-themed photography, her obvious familiarity with the “Mrs. Robinson” dynamic that so informs Christian Grey’s character, and that scene in Nowhere Boy where John Lennon just straight-up whips his dick out for some schoolgirls demonstrates she definitely has the right sensibilities for the material, in which Christian Grey just straight-up whips his dick out for some schoolgirl. (Or, as producer Michael De Lucas puts it, she has a “unique ability to gracefully showcase complex relationships dealing with love, emotion and sexual chemistry.”) Production now moves on to casting the leads, as well as hoping that Taylor-Johnson ignores Bret Easton Ellis and doesn’t just cast her husband, because that would be weird.