Sunday, September 14, 2014

Random DVD Round-Up - ABOUT CHERRY / CHERRY


ABOUT CHERRY is a movie that deals in cinematic cliche. A ruthlessly hipster soundtrack, handheld camerawork and nonchalant dogma-esque cutting.  We know the heroine, Angelina, is a good kid because she works hard at the laundrette and hold her friend's hair back while she vomits. But we also learn that she's so passively naive as to be irritating.  Her vapid wannabe rockstar boyfriend urges her to take pornographic photos and she agrees. Why? She's doesn't do it out of economic desperation. Neither is she making a political point about feminist empowerment a la Sasha Grey. At one point a casting agent asks her point blank why she wants to do porn, and she says "because I want to try something new." I mean, WTF?!  Angelina seems upset when her mum won't let her speak to her kid sister afterwards but why didn't she expect any ramifications?  I guess it's the same lack of awareness that leads her to ignore her best friend's obvious crush on her.  

By this point of the film I'd pretty much lost all interest in the movie despite the fact that we hadn't yet gotten to the big name cameos: Dave Franco as a sleazy lawyer who frequents the strip club that Angelina works in, and Heather Graham as the porn director who first shoots her.

The shame is that this movie, being co-written by a real fetish star, could've genuinely shed some light on how the porn industry works and how girls get brought into it.  Maybe it really as bland as all this but somehow I doubt it. This is exploitation cinema without the exploitation. As it is, ABOUT CHERRY feels about as authentic as a cheesy mainstream Hollywood coming-of-age movie, except that this time instead of a "hooker with a heart of gold" we have a "porn star with a brain of marshmallow".

ABOUT CHERRY aka CHERRY has a running time of 98 minutes and is rated R in the USA.  the movie played Berlin 2012 and was released on demand in the USA in 2012. It was released in the UK in 2013.

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