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| Cherry (Ashley Hinshaw) and Frances (James Franco) look for love in the world of XXX. |
About Cherry
Directed by Stephen Elliott
Written by Stephen Elliott and Lorelei Lee
Starring Ashley Hinshaw, James Franco, Heather
Graham, Dev Patel, and
Lily Taylor
There
was a time in the porn industry, about 25 years ago, when people spoke of
X-rated films that had “crossover potential.” I discuss this phenomenon at some
length in my book Beaver Street, in a scene where I’m asked to play a
“nerdy file clerk” in Tickled Pink, which I describe as “a screwball
comedy with hardcore sex.” This is a historic film, I’m told, because, “never before had a porn movie employed
fourteen paid extras in one non-sex scene.”
Tickled
Pink, like a lot of other pornos produced in this brief “Golden Age,” had “upscale production values,” a quality soundtrack, “performers who could act and fuck,” and a well-plotted script written by a smart
young director who just happened to be passing through smut on his way to
respectability.
Tickled
Pink never did crossover into the mainstream. Nor has any other porn flick.
In fact, with the porn industry having degenerated into amateur exhibitionism
on sites like YouPorn, and professional studs wired on Viagra engaging, as the
inimitable adult-industry critic Gail Dines would put it, in “body-punishing
sex” with a succession of anonymous starlets, the idea of crossover porno has
been long forgotten.
Though
it comes very close, About Cherry contains no hardcore sex and therefore
cannot be called a crossover movie. It does, however, contain a lot of very
explicit sex scenes, and is also the best and most realistic film about the
porn industry I’ve seen since Boogie Nights. It’s certainly the best
movie yet to be made about pornography in the 21st century, an age
when the Internet has taken over and relegated what remains of the venerable
“men’s magazine” industry to its deathbed.
This realism can be attributed to About Cherry’s co-writers,
director Stephen Elliott, who has written extensively about sex, and Lorelei
Lee, a porn star who plays a porn star in the film. Obviously, they both know
the business, and their insider knowledge and experience comes across in such
scenes as when Angelina aka Cherry, played by the gorgeous young actress Ashley
Hinshaw, is interviewed by a porn production company before they hire her to
make videos.
Realistically depicted, as well, is the arc of a porn star’s
career—single-girl still shoot/single-girl video/two-girl video/boy-girl
video—as is the nature of a porn star’s romantic relationship. Cherry begins
dating Frances (James Franco), a wealthy coke-addict attorney who doesn’t
hesitate to tell her what he thinks of her job: “It’s disgusting.”
The extraordinary ensemble of actors—notably Heather Graham
as Margaret, Cherry’s lesbian mentor/director who’s dealing with a jealous
girlfriend; Dev Patel as Andrew, Cherry’s supportive gay friend; and Lily
Taylor as Phyllis, Cherry’s alcoholic mother—create a milieu of such
verisimilitude it can, at times, border on queasy. But the porn industry can,
indeed, be a very queasy place.
The plot is basic: Cherry, a high school student, runs away
from her dysfunctional family and sleazy boyfriend, Bobby (Jonny Weston),
accompanied by Andrew. She winds up in San Francisco, needs a job, and after
waitressing in a strip club, finds her way into porn. What’s different is that About
Cherry, unlike, say, Boogie Nights, ends on a positive note, if not
necessarily a happy one.
Guaranteed to piss off Gail Dines, and that’s a good thing.
