*Get "Lovelace" on Amazon here*
*Get "Inside Deep Throat" on Amazon here*
*Get Ordeal by Linda Lovelace with Mike McGrady on Amazon here*
*Get Out of Bondage by Linda Lovelace with Mike McGrady on Amazon here*
Linda Boreman's tale is a cautionary one. Blinded by love for the wrong man, she would end up being coerced into doing anything to make him happy and save her own life. This biopic shows us the rise and fall of porn icon Linda Lovelace, but unfortunately, it's a story you know all to well.
Twenty year old Linda (Amanda Seyfried) is in Florida, living at home with her stern mother (Sharon Stone) and nice father (Robert Patrick). Linda meets up with Chuck Traynor (Peter Sarsgaard), a ne'er-do-well who instantly attracts the repressed young woman, still being punished for having a baby out of wedlock- the child was put up for adoption, against Linda's wishes. Chuck charms the parents, but after she comes home late and is slapped by her mother, Linda moves out of the house and into the arms of Chuck. Things go okay for a while, until Chuck gets into some legal trouble with his bar, and convinces Linda to go into porn as a way for them to make money. It's the '70's, so why not? After one of the film's best scenes- the audition where Chuck shows the film makers a home movie of Linda's oral talents, Linda finds herself shooting "Deep Throat" with very nice leading man Harry Reems (a good Adam Brody, who looks nothing like Reems), and Chuck is left out in the cold. The film catapults Lovelace to superstardom. As the film makers get to the halfway point of the story, she is taking bows at a screening where she has met Hugh Hefner (James Franco) and other celebrities.
Fast forward six years later, and Lovelace is taking a lie detector test from Eric Roberts (one of the film's many "huh?" cameos). She is ready to write a book about what really happened behind the scenes, and her relationship with Chuck, who she had divorced. Now remarried and living a normal suburban life, Lovelace tells the harrowing tale of physical abuse at the hands of her ex-husband, and that "Deep Throat" is nothing more than a week-long filmed sexual coercion.
The documentary film makers Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman have branched out into docudramas, and created "Howl," one of the best films of 2010. This take on the porn industry of the 1970's is an important story, but coming on the heels of the better "Boogie Nights" and the documentary "Inside Deep Throat," it feels unnecessary. I never saw "Deep Throat," but I did have the misfortune to sit through "The Confessions of Linda Lovelace," which featured an actress wearing a veil and outtakes from the original film. I read both of Lovelace's books that she co-wrote with Mike McGrady, Ordeal and Out of Bondage, and they are harrowing tomes- shocking and salacious. Lovelace's honesty was questioned often about how much coercion was actually involved, but her supporters point to her seemingly willing behavior on set (unlike the film suggests, she made more than one pornographic film, as well as some softcore movies) as an example of post-traumatic stress disorder and being in an abusive relationship.
I bring up Lovelace's books because the writing of Ordeal figures prominently in the film. If Epstein and Friedman had "gone there," the film may have been stronger. Instead, the "good girl gone bad" plot is dragged out. The film is barely an hour and a half, and could have been double that with the amount of situations Lovelace found herself in before, during, and after her infamous fifteen minutes of fame. Seyfried looks the part, and does a nice job portraying Lovelace. She even resembles Sharon Stone a little bit, and their scenes crackle, especially when Linda returns home begging to stay. Another fantastic home life scene is a wrenching telephone conversation between Linda and her father, who saw his daughter's film and had to walk out. Really great stuff, and the film should have featured more of that. We never get any information regarding what Linda's second husband and children thought of her porn past, even though her children served as consultants to the producers.
The film makers hinge their story on Andy Bellin's screenwriting trick of telling us "what really happened" in the second half of the film, but there is none of the imaginative energy that made "Howl" so special. The film looks amazing- the costuming, the editing, and the soundtrack are all top notch. I don't know if the film was tampered with in post-production, but I am curious to see what was left on the cutting room floor. There is no confidence to "Lovelace." Did the film makers decide no one remembers "Star 80," so we'll go that route? Val Kilmer in "Wonderland" presented an excellent look at a porn performer caught up in the debauchery of the times. Instead, excellent turns by Hank Azaria and Chris Noth are forgotten in the midst of cameos like Chloe Sevigny's two-second, one-line credited performance.
Linda Lovelace died in a car accident in 2002, and her story is still being told and talked about. In this instance, her books are much better than this film.
Stats:
(2013) 93 min. (5/10)
-Directed by Rob Epstein, Jeffrey Friedman
-Written by Andy Bellin
-Cast: Amanda Seyfried, Peter Sarsgaard, Sharon Stone, Juno Temple, Robert Patrick, Chris Noth, Hank Azaria, Bobby Cannavale, Adam Brody, James Franco, Debi Mazar, Eric Roberts, Wes Bentley
(R)
Media Viewed: Home Video
