Mostly Sunny

I hope it's not simply because I found the subject, Karen (porno name "Sunny"), to be so attractive and engaging that I enjoyed this film so much. Really, I am NOT in love with her. OK, maybe I developed a _slight_ crush, ahem; anyway... I had read that the she and her husband/agent(?) had had a disagreement about the content (specifically the sparse nudity) with the director that led to a lawsuit to remove it (which they lost), but I cannot imagine why, because the film overall makes her out to be an intelligent, articulate, hard-working, REAL person, and frankly, if there wasn't a little nudity, the movie would be incomplete (or at least a bit disappointing) ;). After watching "Hot Girls Wanted", another "inside look at the porn industry", I felt like I needed to take a (hot) shower. THAT poorly made "film" (video) verified the exploitation of girls by men who can only be described as pimps (and even calling them THAT is being kind) that the porn industry really is. Smoking, tattoos, drug use, profanity; just how one would imagine a bunch of (admittedly young, sexy) whores in a cheap, dirty hotel suite would behave. "Mostly Sunny" is quite opposite. The deep, sensitive, emotional human side - which would seem to be extremely elusive to evoke and capture from a woman who has not only acted in porn, but also been criticized thoroughly and maliciously, and who is now happily monogamous with a pleasant man who really seems to be her soul mate (if you believe in that; happens I do) - comes across just as well as her absolutely stunningly beautiful face in the many extreme closeups. The production value is far above what I expected, although the first half starts to drag a bit and I wish they'd included more of the perfectly choreographed dancing scenes they tease with.

I've mentioned "Sunny" (the character, not the film) to the last four Indian men I talked to and they all get this smirk and say almost exactly the same thing - "Oh yes, I've heard of her, who are we to judge her past?!". None had seen this movie; this is simply the Indian quality of forgiveness that's allowed her to reach the level of popularity among men AND women in Bollywood that she's reached. Nice, for a change. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

I suppose I'd recommend this documentary to fans of Sunny Leone. It's a decent documentary about the career and life of someone who did make an interesting and surprising transition from adult films in the United States to a Bollywood actress.

That having been said, if you're only vaguely aware of who Sunny Leone is (like I was), there's not a lot here. It's not an entertaining film- more informative, and the story of her transition isn't exciting, it's more just a thing that happened. A lot of the film is about her life and family, which isn't likely to be of much interest to anyone who wasn't already a fan.

I watched i could see something more but nothing was there. She good at item number but worse in acting. Ppl better see her good one another screen.

A relatively interesting, albeit superficial documentary about a middling-to-low intellect woman who makes it big from porn--particularly in the subcontinent. The film details the self-orchestrated rise to stardom (lit. to a lechers' idol) of the Canadian-Indian porn-cum-Bollywood actress, "Sunny Leone".

The central theme of the film is money and her erurience for making as much of it as possible. The capitalist / colonialist influences that imbue her every utterance, are clear to discern (even if she is surely complete unconscious of it): she sells herself -- be it as a proud, on-screen whore, or as something more wholesome -- to the highest bidder, in an effort to realise her dreams of, frankly, being rich. (NB: She makes a point of disabusing the audience of any assumption of her being "poor" in her childhood -- only that she could was not given "everything" she wanted, was all.)

Of course, as is often the case with porn actors, "Sunny" seems to have the same delusion of grandeur: imagining herself as a 'Meryl Streep' locked in a naked vessels of tawdry titillation. Most all of her ilk seemingly (indeed, comically!) suffer from the same pathological obliviousness to what is laughably obvious to everyone else: that their only allure is the erotica they engage in -- an allure lasting not a minute longer than the dopamine intoxication in their voyeurs' brains does! To be fair, however, this is something that is touched on later in the film -- when "Sunny" ruminates on her reception by what she fantasies of as being her (Bollywood) acting peers.

The biggest take-aways from this film for mine were, 1) the reverberative effects of females entering into pornography at a young (teens) age -- regarding their their apparently ubiquitous stunted maturity and intellect; 2), the rather seedy and almost puerile nature of Indian attitudes towards sex, the sex industry and its workers -- especially accentuated, in light of the veritable rape epidemic that the nation has been afflicted by for Shiva knows how long (see: Indian banned BBC doco "India's Daughters", for a deeper insight); 3), the de rigueur exploitation of females in said fields and how women / girls themselves even enable this environment to flourish; and 4), the decadent societies that we exist in (rich or poor), which foster, propagate and perpetuate these sordid industries, and which render them as lucrative as they have become.

NB: A special mention with regards to her introspection relating to "Sunny's" parents, which appears in the latter part of the film -- her child-like admissions of guilt (...?) here, cast an umbral shadow over her story; and therefore must be seen and factored in, in order to provide context for the film (and her story) as a whole.

7.5/10

Mostly Sunny abounds in poverty porn. I have no problem with showing Indian poverty if it makes sense for the script. Is this a social or economic documentary about Indian class differences? About Indian capitalism? No? Then why is the documentary peppered with poverty shots?

Is it to contrast Sunny's fortune with the country's unfortunate? Then, would a documentary about a rich Hollywood actor be filled with gratuitous shots of homeless white people or the white working class in the country?

It is almost a tourism of poverty. The camera watches poor people like they're in a zoo, on display for the director's viewing pleasure.

If a biographical documentary about Sunny Leone has to extend to economic inequality in India, show the rich and the poor people and areas equally. Provide context. Don't rely on racist stereotypes to fill in for your laziness. Do justice to the story of the individuals you're filming. Don't treat them like props you can sample as you choose.

Possibly the most jarring part was prostitutes on the street hurriedly covering their face as the camera films them. One of them yells her objection. This isn't about the freedom of documenting the truth. This is about filming vulnerable sections of society because as a middle class person, you can. This about exposing a shamed section of society to further shame, a targeted section of society to possibly further violence.