Far from compelling portrait of a porn star’s blues.
Like the infamous “Star Wars kidâ€, the internet universe has taken regular faces and made them into bandwidth stars. The director known as Ash’s tale entitled This Girl’s Life is inspired by such recent trends and delves into a world that is about ‘baring’ it all.
Playing the role of a porn star with a strong knowledge of self is actress Juliette Marquis who might just duplicate the success of the character she portrays, thanks to her strong debut, her Angelina Jolie looks and her dramatic skills which are apt for this soft core black and blue tale. Even though this film will most likely not see the day at your local theatre thanks to the lack of clothes, what is so refreshing about the make-up of the picture is that it does not shy away from the logistics of the protagonist’s industry—porn means nudity and erotic sounds and there is plenty of it.
What there is plenty of is confusion in the direction of the story, a little too much slice-of-life situations giving us plenty of familiar faces in Rosario Dawson, Michael Rapaport, Kip Pardue inside meaningless roles and characters. What I would have liked to have seen is the first 20 minutes be stretch out over an additional 70 minutes, perhaps Ash could have focused on one world rather than the little too over the map scheme of events and uninteresting developments. Despite this, the picture is not a viewing tragedy, the candid description from Marquis who on occasion talks directly to the camera is a nice touch, especially since it makes reference to her fan world and it gives us a little open book account insight into a percentage of women in the industry who hardly exist in mainstream films on the subject.
Instead of becoming another Roger Dodger, we get distractions like bad sound, crappy photography and less of the instant starlets world and more of muddled subplots that don’t deepen the protagonist’s insight with the whole Parkinson’s distraction, cheating on boyfriends, and starting up new business ventures. At one point, Moon gets asked what her favorite position is, she replies 68, “you go down on me, and I owe you one†which kind of describes the sentiment one gets once This Girl’s Life ends.