Seems odd that the advertising material for this film seems to shine on the fact that Linda Lovelace is known for starring in a porn film, and her story is anything but shining on the porn industry. However that element (her anti-porn crusade) is left out of this film and it instead decides to show us her story during the making of a aftermath of DEEP THROAT. This shows us the two sides to the story, the more glamorous approach and then the abusive approach. It is not a decide for yourself deal either, the film clearly has a side. While that isn’t necessarily a bad thing, the film is extremely uneven and unsure of what it ultimately wants to be about.
We meet Linda Boreman (Amanda Seyfried), she’s a young and innocent woman, under the house rules of two strict parents (Sharon Stone and Robert Patrick). While out one night she meets a man who will ultimately change her life Chuck (Peter Sarsgaard), he wins over her parents and the two get married. In order to make money, Chuck gets Linda involved in a porn film, which happens because she has a very unique talent. Linda seemingly seems okay with this, and the film gets made, however underneath the surface she’s a woman who is being used and abused by her husband and the industry around her.
With the first half of the film playing out like a fairytale in the porn industry, and the second playing out like an abusive nightmare, the parts were there to make a film that really has strong messages. However the two parts don’t quite come together in a way that really gets anything across, aside from saying behind the doors lies trouble. When the door was opened into Linda’s abuse by her husband, the opportunity of the abuse theme was there but it doesn’t do a lot with it. Instead things get brushed over, and there isn’t as much substance in her story as there should have been. She is clearly a woman who has been used and influenced by many people, yet there isn’t a real insight into that. I understand scenes were shot about her anti-porn crusade but were not used, this really needed to be there as well. A proper picture of Linda after the film and after she got out of industry and away from Chuck wasn’t not exactly given to us.
LOVELACE feels like a bunch of scenes placed together, it plays out very strangely and the entire picture isn’t there, even when things do get revealed in the different parts. Chuck for example remains mostly a mystery, his motivations are kind of there but he needed a lot more development other than ‘he’s a douchebag, hate him audience’. Yes this is Linda’s story, he was a big part of this, and given how much he’s in the film the development really needed to be there. With Linda, she is as well developed as was needed, her strict parents and early actions are understandable. At first it is hard to understand why she’d go along with Chuck, the glimpses of the abusive relationship help to form that picture. The people around her are all very horrible people (except Harry Reems played by Adam Brody), who actually seems to care about her as a person not an object. It was designed for us to feel for her, and yes we do but a little more would have been nice instead of odd caricatures. If you have seen the documentary INSIDE DEEP THROAT (highly recommended), you’ll see the people involved were far more interesting than this film portrays.
The real enjoyable part of the film though is the performances, everyone really steps up and moves beyond what was written on paper and aims to get something meaningful across. Stand outs really are our two main stars Amanda Seyfried and Peter Sarsgaard, these two are excellent and are extremely well cast. Seyfried is an actress I have been a fan of since Veronica Mars debuted on television. She is a very talented woman, capable of tackling different sorts of roles. This could very well be one of the most demanding and difficult roles for her and she pulls it off. Not only does she embody the different aspects of Linda but she is believable while doing it. She can easily gain sympathy from the audience, and easily gets through the different takes during the first and second halves. Sarsgaard played the role of a complete prick perfectly, he’s that likeable guy at first but then his true colours show and I bet everyone watching probably wanted to slap him. I never saw Sarsgaard the actor here, I actually saw Chuck the person. He became the character, as did Seyfried and the pair shared a really strong chemistry that made their scenes perhaps the best in the film.
The rest of the cast are there in smaller roles, with Sharon Stone being almost unrecognisable as Mrs. Boreman. The woman works so well when she can leap into a role like this, her talent really shows through well and there is no distraction that it is indeed Sharon Stone. I am loving that Robert Patrick is showing up in such a wide variety of films, playing very different characters. He’s really solid here and he has an amazing scene over the phone with Linda that absolutely made my heart sink. Adam Brody may look nothing like the real Harry Reems, however his performance was rather spot on, he brought the personality of Reems to life and it worked very well. Chris Noth was good as Anthony Romano, I think he played it as cooly as possible. Juno Temple was great as always, she made her part work even though it was small. The other performances were basically cameo appearance, Bobby Cannavale who is generally an interesting actor just wasn’t in this enough to make a strong impact. James Franco was barely there was Hugh Hefner and while it was funny seeing him as Hefner it just ended up being there and almost unnecessary.
I commend writer Andy Bellin and directors Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman for tackling the subject of Linda and DEEP THROAT. It isn’t a sleazy affair and that wasn’t easy, it kind of follows in the foot steps of BOOGIE NIGHTS however it isn’t nearly as good or have as much to say. The down fall of the film is that it feels typical bio-pic and it is a little confused as to what it wants to say and what sort of film it actually wants to be. This is a very watchable film, especially with the performances, it could have been much stronger though it feels like a missed opportunity.
Rating:
The Super Network 