Lovelace

Lovelace is an odd film in that it's really two films wrapped into one. The first film is a rather light 70s set piece about the porn business very reminiscent of the film Boogie Nights, with great performances by Mama Mia's Amanda Seyfried (holding her own even though she is much too pretty to play Linda Lovelace) as well as Peter Sarsgaard as her creepy husband who has no qualms about prostituting his wife out for a buck. Sharon Stone is just fantastic as Linda's mother (you won't even recognize her) and Robert Patrick (of Terminator 2) as her father, and the supporting cast is also perfect, including Boardwalk Empire's Bobby Cannavale and even James Franco playing Hugh Hefner. There is a bit of foreshadowing about what the second film is going to be about, such as when Linda's co-star alludes to the bruises on Linda's leg and also some questionable looks by her husband, but otherwise the movie plays out as a strongly R-rated biopic delivering quite a few laughs.

Then, suddenly, we are thrown into the second film, a PG-13 Lifetime Network-like drama including violins playing. The second film retells the first film, showing the behind the scenes abuse Linda receives from her husband and portraying Linda as someone who is doing it all reluctantly and is trying to escape the porn business. The stark contrast between the second and first films would be more effective if the second film wasn't so formulaic--it even has a gift wrapped happy ending. I imagine the truth of Linda's life falls somewhere in the middle, with Linda's own bad judgment playing at least some part in her life's situation. Unfortunately, although Amanda Seyfried is lovely in the first film as the naive young newlywed getting caught up in the porn business, she isn't reinvented and just doesn't transcend in the more watered down drama of second film like, say, Charlize Theron was in the film Monster. There just aren't any great performance by anyone in the second film as a matter of fact and the scenes that are suppose to be brutal just aren't. When it comes to showing the ugly side of the porn biz this film peters out.

Lovelace, therefore, stands as a slightly above average and obviously heavily fictionalized biopic, when it could and should have been much more, if only some more guts were put into the second half of it.

This bio film of Deep Throat star Linda Lovelace is more interesting than most user comments admit, though in the end as bad as they say.

Linda's lifestory is a chain of confabulation and reinvention, all lives are, a matter of how we view our selves after the fact and deciding on the value. She wrote apparently no less than three autobiographies, with the third one being the 'real' dark story of what happened to her.

So the 'rise' part of the film sees a wholly innocent, fresh young girl being enticed - so pure and shy she won't even take her top off as she sunbathes with a friend in her own backyard! Silly. But that is how she chooses to frame herself reminiscing in the bathtub.

The 'fall' shows those gaps of horrible abuse that were omitted in that first narration. But that is what she chooses to recall as years later she takes a polygraph test on the behest of the publisher of her memoirs. And that is how Linda has chosen to present her story in her own book, herself pure and corrupted by a crazed husband.

This is not to say that she's making everything up, just as we know she isn't completely honest. Truth is usually somewhere in the middle. We see the alleged rape at gunpoint, yet there's no mention of her seedier films which she had denied doing until proof showed up.

So a film worthy of the subject would show two Lindas at odds, a softer understanding of the effort of trying to decide just who you are: the one who (re)writes her story, and the one who is genuinely caught up in it.

Here we simply get Linda the victim. In the end, a cleansed Linda goes on TV to warn against abuse and to promote 'finding yourself'. The film tries to show this reinvention of self and memory by being itself reinvented halfway through, yet in the end plies the same manipulation. The film 'settles' on her story being real, and presents it to us as the life of Linda Lovelace, why, because it comes with positive value we'd rather remember.

An impressive cast lending their talents to a fascinating story, Lovelace brings Amanda Seyfried, Peter Sarsgaard, Sharon Stone, Robert Patrick, Chris Noth, Adam Brody, James Franco and Eric Roberts together to portray characters in the life of Linda Lovelace, a one-shot porn actress that made headlines back in 1972 as star of the blue movie, Deep Throat.

Amanda Seyfried plays Linda, a shy and fairly innocent young girl who falls for Chuck (Peter Sarsgaard) , a mostly manipulative manager/pimp that eventually becomes Linda's husband. Lovelace begins shortly before Linda meets Chuck and establishes Linda's home life with her parents (played by Robert Patrick and an unrecognizable Sharon Stone).

We first meet Chuck as he lays eyes on Linda at a roller skating rink where Linda does an impromptu dance in front of the live band. Chuck woos the younger Linda using his charm and the alluring freedom of his adult lifestyle to eventually bring Linda to a point where she moves out of her home.

The inexperienced Linda is comfortable enough to have Chuck film her giving him oral pleasure and Chuck takes his Super 8 home movie to Butchie Peraino and Gerry Damiano (Bobby Cannavale and Hank Azaria) who are so enthralled with Linda's oral sex talents that they immediately get producer Anthony Romano to provide the funds to make a film that will eventually become Deep Throat.

We get a few topless scenes of Seyfried emulating the famous porn star of the era and enjoying her fame until everything falls like a house of cards due to Chucks violent manner and his insistence that Linda have sex with multiple partners for the purposes of his own financial gain and notoriety.

The film takes us beyond the filming of Deep Throat and we watch as Linda copes with how the film put a strain on the relationship with her parents and through her book deal and talk show circuit appearances where she vehemently denounced pornography.

Laden with a talented cast, Lovelace fails to either have audiences find fault or fall in love with our title character. Everyone in the production come across as characters rather than actual people so it is hard for a viewing audience to attach themselves – good or bad – to any of the competent actors that make up the casting call.

Directors Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman simply don't chisel away at the inner character or either Chuck or Linda with enough feeling to make this a well rounded bio-pic. Instead, it flat-lines with any pulse and does nothing more that attempt to be an exploitation flick about an exploitation flick. Even as the time is captured fairly well in the styles and moods of the early 70's, it ultimately fails in capturing much of anything else including our attention.

The final title cards might have been the most interesting revelations of the entire films. That Linda Lovelace died from injuries suffered in a car accident at age 53. That Chuck Traynor went on to marry another famous actress in the porn industry in his nuptials to Marilyn Chambers. And how the movie Deep Throat went on to become the most successful porn film of all-time raking in hundreds of millions while Linda collected less than $2,000 for her starring role.

If you have always been interested with the film Deep Throat or the incredible life of Linda Lovelace, you may want to seek out any of the documentaries or A&E specials on the topic. Because Lovelace will just leave you superficially satisfied.

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It is quite surprising that sweet and wholesome Amanda Seyfried has been cast as legendary 70s porno star Linda Lovelace. Seyfried, whom we know better as ingénues in musical films like "Mamma Mia" and "Les Miserables," how could she pull this daring stunt off?

"Lovelace" tells of how young and pretty Linda Boreman, from a strict Catholic family, unlikely met and married a sleazy guy named Chuck Traynor.

First, she goes along with Chuck's wild idea to make a her a porn actress, exploiting a certain extraordinary talent of hers which would be the central theme of a little porn flick entitled "Deep Throat." She actually enjoyed the heady success of this stardom as Linda Lovelace, for a while at least.

In a sudden change of pace, the second half of the movie showed how Linda was abused by her husband, physically, mentally, sexually, financially. She quietly suffered this torture until she could not take it anymore and fights to get her old life back.

The acting of Ms. Seyfried was quite good, as she was able to convince us that she was Linda despite being cast against type. She will get us on her side before the film ends. People who watch this film expecting her to reveal more skin will be disappointed, as this Linda kept it pretty clean on screen. The image painted of Linda was actually very sympathetic as well, like it was all Chuck's fault. Ms. Seyfried played the perfect naive victim.

Peter Sarsgaard was effectively creepy as Chuck from the start. You really cannot understand how Linda would marry a guy like this. He could have portrayed being more charming in the beginning to convince us. But he looked like a creep even in that scene where he first met with Linda's parents (portrayed by Robert Patrick and a completely unrecognizable Sharon Stone.)

I think the main problem of the film was in its story telling. There was a very abrupt and stark transformation from happy Linda in Act 1 and sad Linda in Act 2. I think the director was trying to be stylistic about this, not telling these details linearly, instead going back and forth in time. I think this could have been told more effectively another way.

Andy Bellin wrote the screenplay for this biopic-type film directed by both Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman which relates the life of Linda Lovelace, known as the queen of adult porn for her controversial role in the 1972 film DEEP THROAT and the writer of the confessional book ORDEAL which gave the public the 'real story' behind the girl who was Lovelace before she died in 2002 - the girl who is used and abused by the porn industry at the behest of her coercive husband, before taking control of her life. The film is basically divided into two parts - the fantastical story of a freckled face 'innocent' girl of strict upbringing who rises to fame by being the first porn star to perform fellatio on the screen and gained fame and stardom, and the second part of how this naïve girl was the victim of the abusive husband and porn industry until she gained the courage to marry and have a family and step out of the spotlight of her fame in Deep Throat.

And the manner in which the two views on the same girl are interconnected in the film is the strong point of the movie: the technique of show 'reality' while simultaneously depicting 'fiction' works well. The cast is strong: Amanda Seyfried does a star turn as Linda Lovelace (aka Linda Susan Boreman aka Mrs. Larry Marchiano) though much of Lovelace's life is omitted (her liver transplant, her messy divorces, her other films, etc); Peter Sarsgaard is excellent as the smarmy drug-addled Chuck Traynor, the man who convinced Lovelace to enter porn; Sharon Stone and Robert Patrick as her rigid parents; Juno Temple in the thankless role as Lovelace's only friend Patsy; and the porn guys - Chris Noth, Bobby Cannavale, Hank Azaria, Adam Brody as the well-endowed Harry Reems (though that of course is never filmed), Chloë Sevigny as a Feminist Journalist, James Franco as Hugh Hefner, fellow porn star Dolly as portrayed well by Debi Mazar, Wes Bentley, Eric Roberts, and Ron Pritchard as Sammy Davis Jr.! There are real taped interviews and comments by Johnny Carson, Bob Hope and Walter Cronkite which enhance the credibility.

The film closes with an interview after Lovelace has revealed her past in her best selling book ORDEAL - and at that point the film slides down the hill of Hallmark type feel good. An entertaining film about a name from the 20th century that deserves visiting despite the fact that it simply goes on too long.

Grady Harp