Bree Mills aims at mainstream crossover with "Perspective", a thriller about a husband's jealousy, released on DVD in both 98-minute R-rated version (suitable for cable use) and a full-length hardcore 224-minute cut.
The R version is watchable but suffers from far too many loose ends and implausible plot twists, belying a rookie's sort of "first film" issues, as Bree has produced thousands of XXX "scenes" for both internet and DVD use since her early days with partner Stills By Alan circa 2014 (beginning at the Web Young label with at first largely pantomime sex scenes without story or characters) but has rarely demonstrated skills at mainstream storytelling. Chief exception was her excellent lesbian drama "Sharing the Bed", from her Girlsway label.
Here she adopts the familiar literary techinque of the Unreliable Narrator, telling the same story of a failing marriage with a fanatically jealous husband from first the husband's and then the wife's point of view. An unusual element here is that the husband, played by Seth Gamble, is extremely jealous in both halves of the film, merely overacting in the wife's section, but basically unsympathetic (not entirely but generally) from either perspective. As the wife, Angela White is wonderful whichever way the viewer interprets her character's behavior, probably because she is such an effective performer, whether having sex or delivering a character performance.
Conforming with industry standards, the softcore sex scenes in the R version run only 1 or 2 minutes long, similar to Pay-Cable soft porn as popular over the past two decades via Cinemax or Showtime. By contrast, the six XXX sequences run 15, 21,19, 25, 33 and 12 minutes long respectively. The longest sex scene involves Angela and a supportive character Lena, played by Abigail Mac, that is entirely omitted from the R version, with the viewer having to infer by jumping to conclusions that the duo have a lesbian relationship. Of course in the full cut that subplot is not left to the imagination.
This raised the question in mind why an intermediate soft-X version was not provided. Back in the 1990s and beyond it was typical for a Shannon Whirry or Shannon Tweed erotic thriller to be issued in R version as well as an uncut SOFT-X video with simulated sex scenes running 4 or 5 minutes long in the latter, quite different than the cable option and much preferred by fans. Bree instead offers up just the heavily bowdlerized R version vs. the overlong (approaching 4 hours) XXX release. With more than half of the lesbian scene, at least 15 minutes of footage, being softcore I was mystified as to its complete absence in the mainstream cut.
The cast of Adult Cinema actors show their acting ability, though as stated before I found Gamble's mainly staring coiled-up in controlled anger performance unfortunate. With Alina Lopez as a bar pick-up plus Mac and orgy participants Gianna Dior and Whitney Wright in supporting roles, the full-length version is sexy enough to satisfy us fans. Aubrey Kate, in likely her first mainstream role (no transsexual content or even her playing a trans-female character), is wasted as a bartender for strictly exposition use, and I found a scene with her late in the film a misleading red herring alongside numerous unbelievable plot twists and an unsatisfying ending.
