Lovelace (15.)
Directed by Rob Epstein and Joseph Friedman.
Starring Amanda Seyfried, Peter Sargaard, Hank Azaria, Chris Noth, Adam Brody and Sharon Stone. 92 mins
Deep Throat was the Star Wars of pornography – an industry-changing 70s blockbuster whose success still resonates to this day. In 1972, at the height of Porno Chic, it seemed that it might herald the movement of pornography into the mainstream but that never materialised. (Not that it made much difference: the internet meant that pornography, the demon engine of civilisation, could become ubiquitous without fully entering the mainstream.) In that sense Star Wars was far more successful – comic books, fantasy and sci-fi now dominate the culture which once scorned them.
Part of the reason why Deep Throat didn’t herald an era of porno-enlightenment was that it star Linda Lovelace became one of its most strident opponents, exposing the abuse she suffered at the hand of her husband/ pimp Chuck Traynor. Her biopic is skimpy, but effectively grim. It sucks you in with its stop-rewind structure. The first half is a cheerful piece of 70s nostalgia charting the rather prim young Linda Boreman (Seyfried) rapid rise to global stardom under the guidance of her husband Traynor (Sargaard.) It’s not quite a fairy tale but it is humorous and upbeat; it is wrench when the film takes us back to the beginning and retells the story from her point of view, how she was abused and coerced by Traynor.
It’s a harrowing film but it shows us only a fraction of her ordeal. If it was any stronger the film would be unbearable, but its (understandable) failure to fully communicate the level of degradation she experienced is a dramatic flaw.
The film also fails to explain why Deep Throat was such a sensation that celebrities like Sammy Davis Jr would feel the need to be seen to have seen it. From the evidence of this film you’d thing Lovelace was the first woman in history to give a blow job.
The film is substantially over-cast with Eric Roberts being brought in just to administer a lie detector test. There are cameos everywhere including James Franco as Hugh Hefner but it is the two leads that are the film’s best aspects. I’d always dismissed Seyfried as an insipid performer but she does a fine job here while Sarsgaard’s Traynor is like an evil version of Ron Burgundy.
Directed by Rob Epstein and Joseph Friedman.
Starring Amanda Seyfried, Peter Sargaard, Hank Azaria, Chris Noth, Adam Brody and Sharon Stone. 92 mins
Deep Throat was the Star Wars of pornography – an industry-changing 70s blockbuster whose success still resonates to this day. In 1972, at the height of Porno Chic, it seemed that it might herald the movement of pornography into the mainstream but that never materialised. (Not that it made much difference: the internet meant that pornography, the demon engine of civilisation, could become ubiquitous without fully entering the mainstream.) In that sense Star Wars was far more successful – comic books, fantasy and sci-fi now dominate the culture which once scorned them.
Part of the reason why Deep Throat didn’t herald an era of porno-enlightenment was that it star Linda Lovelace became one of its most strident opponents, exposing the abuse she suffered at the hand of her husband/ pimp Chuck Traynor. Her biopic is skimpy, but effectively grim. It sucks you in with its stop-rewind structure. The first half is a cheerful piece of 70s nostalgia charting the rather prim young Linda Boreman (Seyfried) rapid rise to global stardom under the guidance of her husband Traynor (Sargaard.) It’s not quite a fairy tale but it is humorous and upbeat; it is wrench when the film takes us back to the beginning and retells the story from her point of view, how she was abused and coerced by Traynor.
It’s a harrowing film but it shows us only a fraction of her ordeal. If it was any stronger the film would be unbearable, but its (understandable) failure to fully communicate the level of degradation she experienced is a dramatic flaw.
The film also fails to explain why Deep Throat was such a sensation that celebrities like Sammy Davis Jr would feel the need to be seen to have seen it. From the evidence of this film you’d thing Lovelace was the first woman in history to give a blow job.
The film is substantially over-cast with Eric Roberts being brought in just to administer a lie detector test. There are cameos everywhere including James Franco as Hugh Hefner but it is the two leads that are the film’s best aspects. I’d always dismissed Seyfried as an insipid performer but she does a fine job here while Sarsgaard’s Traynor is like an evil version of Ron Burgundy.
