Pleasure

I've seen at least one doc on porn life and more than one film that shows it, so there wasn't much here that would shock me. I think the most striking thing about the film is how much of what we see could be true across the film industry - women cheapening themselves more or less willingly in hopes of getting ahead, a progressive surrender of idealism, some unpleasant surprises, decidng to work past them until one or does not decide the price is worth paying to get where you want to be. Much of what we see is the maturation or hardening - depending on your point of view - of someone coming to terms with the requirements of a predatory world (and porn is far from the only such world in LA) while - possibly less realistically - questioning the price of her own ambition. Apparently many of the performers here are actual porn performers, which mainly shows in their ease in certain scenes. But there is a lot of good emotional life in their work as well. Anyone who watches this mainly for the sex is likely to be disappointed - there are non-porn related films with more overt sexual scenes - and some might find it simply hard to watch at times. But it's a real story with a real progress and real relationships that happens to be set in the world of porn.