Linda Lovelace – Pornostar (2013)

Linda Lovelace – Pornostar: Directed by Rob Epstein, Jeffrey Friedman. With Amanda Seyfried, Peter Sarsgaard, Sharon Stone, Robert Patrick. The story of Linda Lovelace, who is used and abused by the porn industry at the behest of her coercive husband before taking control of her life.

“This bio film of Deep Throat star Linda Lovelace is more interesting than most user comments admit, though in the end as bad as they say. u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eLindau0026#39;s lifestory is a chain of confabulation and reinvention, all lives are, a matter of how we view our selves after the fact and deciding on the value. She wrote apparently no less than three autobiographies, with the third one being the u0026#39;realu0026#39; dark story of what happened to her.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eSo the u0026#39;riseu0026#39; part of the film sees a wholly innocent, fresh young girl being enticed – so pure and shy she wonu0026#39;t even take her top off as she sunbathes with a friend in her own backyard! Silly. But that is how she chooses to frame herself reminiscing in the bathtub.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe u0026#39;fallu0026#39; shows those gaps of horrible abuse that were omitted in that first narration. But that is what she chooses to recall as years later she takes a polygraph test on the behest of the publisher of her memoirs. And that is how Linda has chosen to present her story in her own book, herself pure and corrupted by a crazed husband. u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThis is not to say that sheu0026#39;s making everything up, just as we know she isnu0026#39;t completely honest. Truth is usually somewhere in the middle. We see the alleged rape at gunpoint, yet thereu0026#39;s no mention of her seedier films which she had denied doing until proof showed up. u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eSo a film worthy of the subject would show two Lindas at odds, a softer understanding of the effort of trying to decide just who you are: the one who (re)writes her story, and the one who is genuinely caught up in it.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eHere we simply get Linda the victim. In the end, a cleansed Linda goes on TV to warn against abuse and to promote u0026#39;finding yourselfu0026#39;. The film tries to show this reinvention of self and memory by being itself reinvented halfway through, yet in the end plies the same manipulation. The film u0026#39;settlesu0026#39; on her story being real, and presents it to us as the life of Linda Lovelace, why, because it comes with positive value weu0026#39;d rather remember.”