Cherry   Starring: James Franco, Heather Graham, Dev Patel and Ashley Hinshaw Distributor: Koch Media RRP: £19.99 Certificate: 15 Release Date: 09 September 2013

Leaving her small home town, Cherry and her best friend head out to San Francisco, intent on finding a new life. What she actually finds is a bad love affair with a drug addled, narcissistic lawyer and an entry onto the porn industry...

Cherry (2012 - 1 hr, 38 min, 01 sec) is a drama directed by Stephen Elliott, who co-wrote the script with Lorelei Lee, writer and pornographic actress. With an actual insight into the industry I was looking forward to the film for its insights. However, I walked away not really knowing what the film was trying to achieve.

The central narrative of a small town girl leaving for the big city lights and falling into the porn industry isn’t new but with Lee’s contribution and the rich/soft picture the film could almost work as a recruitment film for the industry.

I’m certainly not puritanical, nor do I think that the industry is all run by gangsters who drag unsuspecting girls off the street to use their youth and innocence until they are spent. Sex is one of the main requirements of a healthy life even if it is vicarious, a world obsession, there will always be a demand for the industries product, so I wasn’t surprised at the sympathetic take, but I was disappointed with the weakness of the central story.

James Franco is a talented actor, but is wasted as, Frances, Cherry’s boyfriend. A disappointed artist who has turned to drugs to help him cope with the fact that he became a lawyer, earning considerably more than he would and leaving him enough time to pursue his art, only for some reason this never occurs to him, making him a totally unsympathetic character.

Ashley Hinshaw is engaging as Cherry, running into the expected resistance to her life choices, although her mother’s (Lily Taylors) reaction is a bit rich as she had chosen alcoholism as a way of life. Reactions are what the film provides, as the movie fails to take an external look into Cherry’s world.

The film, because of the story, does include nude scenes and scenes of simulated sex, although oddly enough it is probably the least arousing thing I have seen in a while. Presumably, this reflects the real feeling on the set of a porn shoot, where constant exposure leads to burnout, for the audience the burnout with the sex kicks in early.

Shot in dodgy cinema verity style, with the wobbly camera, which directors think gives a film a more real, almost documentary feeling, but which in fact makes you feel like you’re trying to watch the film on a boat, after a while you find yourself shouting at the screen for the director to go out and buy a bloody tripod.

The film was supplied as a screener, with just the film burned to a DVD, still it looked good, if a little over saturated, but it’s probably not a reflection of the finished product.

What should have been - I don’t know, shocking or incisive - turned out to be only mildly interesting.

5

Charles Packer