Fifty Shades Freed finally remembered to give Rita Ora a storyline of her own. Prior to the success of the original Fifty Shades Of Grey movie, the erotic thriller genre had been essentially dead in Hollywood for some time. It experienced a brief but intense revival during the 1990s following the success of Basic Instinct. Stars Michael Douglas would go on to Disclosure while Sharon Stone made Sliver. It seemed every major star had their own erotic drama during this period, including Madonna’s Body Of Evidence, Bruce Willis’ Color Of Night and Antonio Banderas’ Never Talk To Strangers.
Interest in that subgenre quickly died out, however. The Fifty Shades Of Grey novel started life as erotic Twilight fan fiction before being rewritten by author E.L. James into an original story. The book was published in 2011 and became a runaway bestseller. Naturally, this led to interest in a movie adaptation. Sam Taylor-Johnson was hired to direct, while Charlie Hunnam was cast but dropped out due to a prior commitment to Guillermo del Toro’s Crimson Peak. Jamie Dornan took his place whilst Dakota Johnson was cast as Ana.
Fifty Shades Of Grey was a huge hit despite weak reviews, while Taylor-Johnson backed out of directing sequels Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed after a bad experience working with James. Fans of singer Rita Ora (Detective Pikachu) were pleased when she was cast as Mia Grey, Christian’s adopted sister. Ora did press for the movie but her screentime ultimately came to under two minutes. Adding insult to injury was her strange wig and the fact she had barely any dialogue.
This led to something of an outcry amount her fanbase, but while Rita Ora got a little more to do in Fifty Shades Darker, she was very much a background character. Thankfully, Fifty Shades Freed didn’t repeat the same mistakes, giving Ora a key subplot and plenty of dialogue. Of course, the main focus is on Christian and Ana, but it still gives Mia plenty of screentime and she is later kidnapped by Ana’s vengeful ex-boss, who demands a huge ransom. Sadly, this whole section is quite rushed and ends in an anti-climatic way, but at least it gave Ora a chance to stretch her acting muscles a little.
Rita Ora also collaborated with One Direction’s Liam Payne on single “For You” for the movie’s soundtrack. Fifty Shades Freed was something of a flat ending to a trilogy that didn’t have great reviews to start with, but at least for fans of Ora it finally gave her a chance to shine.
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