Lovelace, the bio-pic by award-winning directors Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman (who have previously collaborated on a number of occasions, including Howl and The Celluloid Closet) is an insight into the sexual revolution of the ‘70s. It tells the story of the world’s most famous porn star, Linda Lovelace (real name Linda Susan Boreman), the lead in the most successful porn-movie of all time, Deep Throat. Lovelace concentrates on the period during the making of the film and then six years later, when Lovelace set out to tell the truth about her past and how she came to be the poster girl of porn.

Much has been written about this event and Lovelace, skilfully played by Amanda Seyfried (Gone/ Les Miserables), wrote four books about it at different times in her life, from when she embraced her porn-star image, became a born-again Christian, a feminist and, finally, a very sick, broke woman. The most amazing fact being that her notorious celebrity status only earned her a meagre US$1,250 which she claimed her husband Chuck Traynor (Peter Sarsgaard – Blue Jasmine/ An Education), kept from her. The film apparently went on to make 600 million! And, according to Lovelace, she only worked for 17 days in the porn industry and yet it controlled her life. [However, she featured in a film prior to Deep Throat (1972) called Dog Fucker (aka Dogarama), in 1971. The title clearly indicates the storyline!] In the Lovelace bio-pic version, Lovelace also states that she would never go on to make any other porn movies and yet she made Deep Throat II in 1974. Go figure…

Lovelace has a terrific ‘70s soundtrack and uses a Super 16 mm. format, so it looks like it really was shot in that decade too. The cast is pretty impressive as well: both Sarsgaard and Seyfried deliver performances that are quite chilling in their depictions of the procurer and his victim, the supposedly hapless daughter of Sharon Stone ((Basic Instinct / Casino) almost unrecognisable as Linda’s stitched-up, religious mother) and her equally emotionally suppressed father Robert Patrick (Terminator 2: Judgment Day/ Walk The Line). There are also great performances by that triumvirate of sleaze, the porn film producers Anthony Romano (Chris Noth - who can forget his Mr. Big in both the feature and series of Sex And The City?) and Butchie Peraino (Bobby Cannavale - Blue Jasmine/ Boardwalk Empire), and director Gerry Damiano (Hank Azaria - the voice of Chief Wiggins in The Simpsons). They are simply ‘gob-smacked’ when they see what Linda is capable of doing. And there’s a great cameo, a sleazy performance by the very versatile James Franco (127 Hours/ Springbreakers) as Playboy founder Hugh Hefner.

The reputation that precedes the content of Lovelace will give it a head start (pardon the pun!) at the box office and it mainly delivers on what it sets out to do. However, it will divide its audience for two reasons, namely the underlying creepiness of the story and the fact that many of the pertinent facts have simply been left out. While one sympathises with a woman who claims she was forced into prostitution with a gun held to her head, one can’t ignore the question of whether or not Lovelace was actually a willing performer who is merely trying to whitewash her murky past. It’s an interesting question, but you won’t get the answer to it here.

It’s a sad irony that Lovelace acquired hepatitis as a result of a blood transfusion administered after a car accident in 1987, which resulted in a subsequent need for a liver transplant. The tragedy does not stop there for she had another serious car accident in 2002 and suffered massive internal injuries, resulting in her death at the age of 53. A sorry tale indeed.

// SALT

Previewed at Dendy Newtown, Sydney, on 18 September 2013