--- title: Critics Christian Grey Is a Predictable Psychopath in Fifty Shades Spinoff description: Whether you’re a longtime superfan or so repulsed that the color grey now makes you squirm, it’s probably been next to impossible to avoid news... canonical: https://time.com/3927833/fifty-shades-grey-christian-reviews-critics-psycho-sex-masochist-el-james/ author: Entertainment Weekly article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-06-19T03:52:55.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T05:02:57.296Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: Christian Grey Is a Predictable Psychopath in 'Fifty Shades' Spinoff og:description: "The 'love affair' is now the twisted work of an utter psychopath" og:url: https://time.com/3927833/fifty-shades-grey-christian-reviews-critics-psycho-sex-masochist-el-james/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Christian Grey Is a Predictable Psychopath in 'Fifty Shades' Spinoff twitter:description: "The 'love affair' is now the twisted work of an utter psychopath" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Critics Christian Grey Is a Predictable Psychopath in _Fifty Shades_ Spinoff ## Video: Super Fans React To 50 Shades of Grey Screening [Watch (HLS stream): Super Fans React To 50 Shades of Grey Screening](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/QjE5FVDr.m3u8) (1:27)  _Published 2015-02-06. Super fans who attended an early screening of the 50 Shades of Grey movie at the Ziegfeld Theater in New York City had a lot to say about the film, which is set to release on February 13th._ by [Entertainment Weekly](https://time.com/author/entertainment-weekly/) ## Entertainment Weekly Jun 19, 2015 3:52 AM UTC by [Entertainment Weekly](https://time.com/author/entertainment-weekly/) ## Entertainment Weekly Jun 19, 2015 3:52 AM UTC Whether you’re a longtime superfan or so repulsed that the color grey now makes you squirm, it’s probably been next to impossible to avoid news about _Grey_, E.L. James’s companion book to the _Fifty Shades_ trilogy, told from Christian Grey’s perspective. From psychopathy to predictability, here’s what the early critics have to say: **_The Guardian:_** [**_Grey_** **by EL James review – Christian Grey indulges his inner psychopath**](http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jun/18/grey-by-el-james-review-fifty-shades-of-grey-follow-up)**,** “The first book was a rather fun and fairly mild portrait of a woman’s sexual fantasy. Yet it is almost impossible to read _Grey_ and not assume the narrator is going to end up in jail. It is most reminiscent of those thrillers that open from the point of view of the heavy-breathing murderer stalking his prey. Instead of lighthearted and repetitive mild S&M, the ‘love affair’ is now the twisted work of an utter psychopath.” **_The Telegraph:_** [**‘Mr Darcy with nipple clamps’: Bryony Gordon reviews EL James’s** **_Grey_**](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/11683078/Mr-Darcy-with-nipple-clamps-Bryony-Gordon-reviews-EL-Jamess-Grey.html) “_Grey_, the fourth book from EL James, is about as sexy as a misery memoir and as arousing as the diary of a sex offender. … This, then, is the best the 21st century can come up with in terms of romantic literary heroes – a cut-price Mr Darcy in nipple clamps. … The message here is clear: we are supposed to pity him. And yet the only person I pitied was poor old Anastasia, who, having had her opportunity to tell her side of the story in the Fifty Shades trilogy, has been written, in this book, with all the personality of a blow-up doll. “ **_The Washington Post:_** [**‘** **_Grey: Fifty Shades of Grey as Told by Christian_** **’ is far too serious and for fans only**](http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/grey-fifty-shades-of-grey-as-told-by-christian-by-el-james/2015/06/18/b1f6f83a-1465-11e5-9518-f9e0a8959f32%5Fstory.html) “However one feels about the series, there’s no denying that _Grey_, released worldwide Thursday, is a completist’s dream. It retells the story of _Fifty Shades of Grey_ and the earliest section of _Fifty Shades Darker_ in Christian’s perspective. It is a behemoth of a book, 557 pages of Ana and Christian’s fraught and at times unsettling love story, here made more unsettling by the truth that fans already know: Christian is not just dark and mysterious; he’s everything he warned Ana he was in the original book. He’s unquestionably ‘fifty shades of \[expletive\] up.’” “…But even with all this explanation, with the clear and well-trod defense of Christian, it’s difficult to understand him. Or, rather, it’s difficult to understand why any woman in her right mind would take a chance on him.” **_The Telegraph:_** [**I read the new** **_Fifty Shades of Grey_** **and it was less sexy than an eye test** ](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/sex/11683484/Fifty-Shades-of-Grey-according-to-Christian-Less-sexy-than-eye-tests.html) “… it turns out that Christian Grey isn’t just fifty shades of f\*\*\*\*\* up (there’s a whole thing about a peeled ginger root in a place that a ginger root should never be) but he’s also about a million different shades of sexist.” **_The Economist:_** [**_Grey_** ](http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2015/06/grey-review)[**review: I’m a creep**](http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2015/06/grey-review) “Here the flesh strung between the narrative bones reveals Mr. Grey to be an even more deeply unpleasant, insecure asshole than your correspondent had previously imagined. And no more three-dimensional. … Most chapters begin with dream-vignettes of his abusive childhood (with the exception of one hideous wet dream about two thirds of the way through). But if these were meant to help give him depth and excuse his less savoury behaviour then they resoundingly fail.” **_St. Louis Post-Dispatch_** **(** **_AP_** **Review):** [**First look:** **_Grey_** **goes inside Christian’s predictable mind**](http://www.stltoday.com/entertainment/books-and-literature/reviews/first-look-grey-goes-inside-christian-s-predictable-mind/article%5Fa83a3148-9d59-52e4-8056-bbb044616f09.html) “After the movies, do we really need Grey’s little interior asides, ‘Maybe this could work,’ for example? Is there anything we don’t know about him already? … Grey’s self-loathing comes alive in predictable expletives — and predictable cliches as realizes his pull to Ana is ‘like a moth to a flame.’” [_This article originally appeared on EW.com_](http://www.ew.com/article/2015/06/18/grey-reviews-el-james) ### Fifty Shades of Grey: TIME's Exclusive Portraits of the Cast and Director  Dakota Johnson (Anastasia “Ana” Steele) and Jamie Dornan (Christian Grey) photographed at Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles on Jan. 13, 2015. Malerie Marder for TIME  Dakota Johnson (Anastasia “Ana” Steele) photographed at Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles on Jan. 13, 2015. Malerie Marder for TIME  Sam Taylor-Johnson (director) photographed at Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles on Jan. 13, 2015. 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