Review of Lovelace (2013) by Nick O — 20 Sep 2013

You don't want a movie that reflects the '70s. You want a movie that lives it. What I guess I liked about "Lovelace" is that it doesn't rest on its retro laurels, which is good, because that's probably still yet the stiffest aspect of a film set in a world on the edge of a sexual revolution. Who am I to say what a movie "should" be, so in one sense "Lovelace" makes good on its promise of being about Linda Lovelace and not Linda Boreman, the good-girl-gone-bad behind the fame name. It's kind of ironic to have a character make the claim of porn being "fake" -- how it "isn't enough" to just point a camera at girl A and boy B and let 'em go at it -- when that's pretty much all "Lovelace" does, cast great actors in tiny roles or cameos (Chloë Sevigny's appearance as a TV reporter is so slight she's hardly even worth mentioning) to do their best with a script that's light on drama. It's a neat trick the movie does by chronicling the heaven of "Deep Throat's" celebrity before turning back and showing you the hell behind the scenes. But, like I said, it's all Lovelace the personality and no Boreman the human.

At its worst "Lovelace" is guilty of exactly what "Lee Daniels' The Butler" is guilty of, having these huge emotional outbursts over a swelling score, when in reality the catharses on screen are unearned. Even its elliptical storytelling is more than a little spotty, not wink-wink clever enough to call it pretentious but not mighty enough to say it's exactly the most earnest. At the risk of sounding pretentious myself, I felt somewhat like a movie producer by the end of "Lovelace": dig the girl, Amanda Seyfried, the only reason one should see "Lovelace", though she's squandered. I even love the guy, Peter Sarsgaard as Linda's violent, sleazy husband/keeper Chuck Traynor, an actor whose crazy-calm demeanor totally relishes the role of a sociopath. After that, I could take or leave the rest. There's barely any sex in "Lovelace", which is either what sets the movie apart or what kills it from cutting deep. The tragedy of Boreman (Marchiano up until her death in 2002) is scary, but all "Lovelace" feels is scared.

Also Sharon Stone is in this as Linda's mother, and she's -- talk about stiff, first off -- remarkably horrible. Like, it makes me want to revisit what I consider her career high "Casino" to see if it's just Scorsese's choice directing that made her look good there. What the fuck indeed.