Hopeless

From producer Holly Randall comes "Hopeless", a pretentious and artsy lesbian feature made by a filmmaker who has been a crew member on major Hollywood productions, but proves inept at porn direction: Jeffrey John Hart. With cliched dialogue and story (written in collaboration with Kyle McQueen), the 52-minute video is far inferior to literally dozens of recent lesbian vignettes from top labels in the field like Allerluv and Girlfriends Films.

Both lead actresses Casey Calvert and Lumi Ray, in what is basically a two-hander movie, are merely okay as lovers who ultimately deliver a 23-minute long XXX scene in bed for porn fans. But we have to sit through a longer, tedious build-up that is anything but involving. Opening has a potential third player in a love triangle, Codey Steele, almost invisible in a role that is mainly voice-over against vistas of sunset. He breaks up with Casey over jealousy regarding her relationship with Lumi.

Casey has a dimly lit masturbation scene in her bathtub (softcore) intercut with Lumi training her boxing skills on a heavy bag -strictly filler. Then we're treated to a sappy Semi Obligatory Lyrical Interlude (S. O. L. I.) of Lumi & Casey on the beach, a technique that went out with movies of the 1960s (its peak in date-night hits like Bo Widerberg's classic "Elvira Madigan" with its classical music background), but here with an annoying synthesized musical score by Hornsbee that is PLAYED LOUD! Of course the music got an instant AVN award nomination.

Ivy Wolfe, with her new face and body look (fans might not even recognize her) shows up giggling as a beauty who makes a pass at Casey at the beach, causing a near-breakup with jealous Lumi. But all is well, there's nothing like some cunnilingus and rimming to heal all wounds.

Randall & director Hart followed up with another romance "Broken Butterfly" that features overlapping casting (and got more fake AVN award nominations), but I'm passing on sitting through another dose from this team.