A young drug-addled writer approaching the bottom of his descent submits to two months of agonizing detox at a treatment center in Minnesota.

Therapist Jean Holloway develops dangerous and intimate relationships with the people in her patients' lives in this simmering psychological thriller.

When college senior Anastasia Steele steps in for her sick roommate to interview prominent businessman Christian Grey for their campus paper, little does she realize the path her life will take. Christian, as enigmatic as he is rich and powerful, finds himself strangely drawn to Ana, and she to him. Though sexually inexperienced, Ana plunges headlong into an affair -- and learns that Christian's true sexual proclivities push the boundaries of pain and pleasure.