Lovelace

This portrait of the most famous porn star in the world would have one believe that she was just an innocent young woman from the suburbs victimized by a controlling husband. Writer Andy Belin's script directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffery Friedman's focus of what could have been a cultural exploration of the sexual revolution ushered in and made mainstream by Deep Throat, instead becomes more of a Lifetime Channel dramatization.

Amanda Seyfried does a remarkable job as Linda Boreman who lives in Florida with her parents Dorothy (Sharon Stone) and John (Robert Patrick). They moved from the Bronx after Linda got pregnant and her mother gave up the child for adoption. Her dad had to end his career as a cop and work as a security guard. Linda a typical young woman during the early 70's likes to have fun and pick up boys with her best friend Patsy (Juno Temple). She meets Chuck (Peter Sarsgaard) who has bad news written all over him, but Linda responds to his sweet talking. Soon she is defying her parents and moving in with her Svengali lover. He teaches her some bedroom tricks and when he gets into some financial trouble at his stripper bar, he pimps out his wife for the extra cash. Linda tries to go back home, but her overly religious mom tells her that she should be supporting her husband and do whatever he tells her. From there the control creep gets Linda to audition to this mob controlled porn filmmakers (Chris Noth, Bobby Cannavale, and Hank Azaria) who are impressed with her talents.

The craziness that exploded after the success of Deep Throat swept up the players involved in a whirlwind of media frenzy. Everyone wanted a piece of Linda Lovelace the stage name given the freckled face newcomer to the XXX rated movie world including Hugh Hefner (James Franco). Chuck does his best to exploit his wife with various toys, dolls, and dildos branded to Lovelace and all the while doing copious amounts of drugs by borrowing money from the mob. Linda only made $1250 for her work. His increasing erratic behavior puts Linda in danger by his physical abuse. The movie producers want to make more movies with Linda but at that point Linda makes a stand to get out while she still could.

There really isn't any titillating scenes in this movie. Couldn't even classify any of the scenes as soft porn. The simulated scenes with Harry Reems (Adam Brody) mirroring the bad acting line readings from the real movie are funny. The film only looks at those heady days of Linda's career, but outside of the obvious trauma that she endured with her husband it doesn't look at the most interesting part of her life turning into an anti-porn activist. As a icon of the era womens sexual freedom Linda Lovelace became a household name, it's too bad the film doesn't go deeper.
(Review by reesa)