Ernest Greene has taken the marginality out of BDSM in several mainstream features, and this first segment of an "O" trilogy is quality Adult entertainment. Carmen Luvana in the title role is especially satisfying.
She also starred for Greene in his "The Perfect Secretary: Training Day", and seems here to have captured the essence of the elusive (and iconic) French submissive character.
Tommy Gunn is well-cast as O's master Ray, intent on controlling the willful girl. She works as a successful photographer for Gunn's porn magazine, but he takes her out of her comfortable environment and transports her by Jaguar (feature has top-notch production values throughout) to a mansion where she's to be trained, just as in the original Pauline Reage novel.
Kylie Ireland and Adrianna Nicole, both styled and groomed to perfection, steal the show for a while as the servants who prep O with all sorts of bondage paraphernalia to be literally whipped into shape. Nina Hartley, exotic in black wig and patent leather outfit, is Marie, who runs the show (and in real-life is Greene's wife cum porno star).
Film features many sex scenes, mostly involving condoms (but not all) as counterpoint to the B&D plus S&M content, qualifying it as almost conventional Adult video material. It is Greene's delving into the psyche of the participants, especially Luvana as the mysterious, ambivalent O, that sets this apart.
Main plot thread is Gunn's giving O (she has to agree of course, everything in BDSM supposedly being consensual) to his half-brother Evan Stone on the condition that she obey Stone henceforth, and by O's condition that Stone not fall in love with her. After much rambunctious plot twisting, Stone of course falls in love with the unbelievably beautiful Carmen, and thus loses her forever.
On the way is a key subplot involving Carmen's favorite model Monica Sweetheart who is something of a pawn in the battle between the brothers involving O. It was great seeing the divine Monica in an acting role for a change after watching her over the years in umpteen gonzo assignments opposite stars like Mandingo and Lexington Steele.
With expert lighting effects and arresting decor, the video is always impressive to look at and educational for me into the labyrinthine logic of BDSM advocates. I'm looking forward to seeing two other actresses as O in the Greene sequels, and hopefully the somewhat contradictory nature (for me at least) of the oft-expressed "freedom through submission" role-playing life style will become clearer to me. Frankly, I'm still at the starting gate wondering if this particular cult makes any more sense to the arm's length observer than Scientology.
