★★★★☆

Lovelace covers a lot of ground and brings back some fond memories. You kids today with your 24×7 free low quality porn on the Internet weren’t around for the Golden Age of Porn. Deep Throat is the movie that launched it and Linda Lovelace was the star. I’ve written about this era before and will write about it again. This was a time when they actually wrote scripts. Actors actually had to learn dialog. Most movies had a plot. The tail end of this era came with a 1985 movie titled Corporate Assets.

This was the time when theaters in a decent part of town actually ran X-rated movies. Your friends and neighbors would all go to see them. It wasn’t some dirty little thing you had to own special equipment like a movie projector to be a part of. It didn’t become a “private” thing until the VCR became cheap and video rental stores were everywhere.

Some Notables

I watched that entire movie and didn’t recognize Sharon Stone. Hank Azaria is always a treat if you give him a role where he can do a bit of comedy. The list of cast members has no shortage of recognizable names. Seems like everyone wanted a piece of this movie.

Admittedly, nobody ever does a movie about the shiny happy side of the porn industry and it is/was most definitely ripe with abuses, but it had protectors too. Peter Sarsgaard was phenom as Linda’s piece of shit first husband. You all know Chris Noth from that perpetually unfortunate Sex and the City series and possibly some recent news stories. He really delivers in his role on this film. He wasn’t “just the money man” he was also the protector. From everything I’ve read and heard, it wasn’t until the money men got hooked on cocaine that they stopped being “the protector” of the starlets.

Amanda Seyfried is a Treasure in Lovelace

That girl really dove into the innocent girl next door aspect of this story. I’m damned glad they took the time to spell that out. She was raised by a highly restrictive mother who had a kid early in life before she found a man to be her husband. When Linda followed in mommies footsteps mother tricked her into signing adoption papers and became even more restrictive/domineering.

Granted I was only a small child in the 60s, but that is a story I heard over and over again. Sometimes they were bible thumpers, other times they were just brutal people. Basically kept their daughters under lock and key. The forces of the raging hormonal river sat there compressing a giant spring. At the very first opening it launched them into the deep end.

I even got to watch this happen. A friend of mine was one of five daughters. Across the street from them was another family of four daughters. My friend’s family allowed a lot of leash. Their daughters were allowed to know and experience life. The family across the street were what one would call bible thumpers. Their daughters existed on a very short leash. When they finally were allowed to date they had to be home by 10pm. It was just like the tale we see in this movie, but with four daughters instead of one. Every one of them got knocked up before they got married. My friend and her sisters did not get knocked up before marriage.

Any of you living in Linda’s situation today I pity. Yes, I still see it happening today.

Summary

This movie definitely earns four stars. It really earns 4.5 but I don’t have half stars. I learned quite a bit watching this movie. I didn’t know that Linda’s piece of shit ex-husband married Marilyn Chambers after the divorce. It would be interesting to see a biopic about her to see if the ex was still a controlling piece of shit while married to her. I really like the fact the movie focuses on the back story.

For more movie rental ideas please see list one and list two.