Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Amanda Seyfried, Peter Sarsgaard, Sharon Stone, Robert Patrick, Juno Temple, Hank Azaria, Adam Brody, James Franco, Wes Bentley, Eric Roberts, Chris Noth, Bobby Cannavale, Debi Mazer, Cory Hardrict, Chloe Sevigny.
Deep Throat was a film that when it was released had the suggestion that it played alongside the freedom of sex and was the peak of the sexual revolution. It made Linda Lovelace a face that was internationally recognised and made millions for its backers and for the multitude of cinema goers who made this x-certificate film so popular it seemed that on the surface that nothing could be wrong, harmless but very blue fun. For Linda Lovelace, born Linda Boreman, it was anything but fun and the woman was degraded, abused and left mentally and emotionally scared by what the industry and especially her first husband Chuck Traynor put her through. Lovelace is without doubt one of the finest films to capture the shock and near horror of what a woman can go through in the sleazy world of pornography.
Amanda Seyfried portrays Linda Lovelace with a satisfying maturity and her relationship with Peter Sarsgaard who gave a disturbingly charming and brutal interpretation as the man who saw Dollar signs and salivated at the ease of pimping his wife out in return for putting his wife’s name in lights.
What makes Andy Bellin’s script so fascinating and outstanding is the way that the film turns on a dime. The bright lights, the world-wide adoration, meeting people such as Hugh Heffner and Sammy Davis Junior and being feted is as with the nature of the film industry an illusion, a masterpiece of deception and bleak indictment of what really happened behind the scenes.
The hedonism and dogmatic religious aspects of 1970s America is captured so well between. Ms Seyfried, Peter Sarsgaard and Sharon Stone was illuminating and the way that Ms. Stone told her daughter that no matter what she had to obey her husband was just as unsettling as the degradation and exploitation that the industry and especially Chuck Traynor put her through.
With some excellent starring roles, the film has an embarrassment of riches in the actors taking part, Hank Azaria as Gerard Damiano, the Director of Deep Throat, Sharon Stone and Robert Patrick as Linda’s parents and the excellent Juno Temple and James Franco all giving the type of performances that frame the reasons why the film is intense, so brutally honest and should be shown for what it is, an expose of how some industries and people use and abuse the people to get what they want. Robert Patrick was especially dynamic as the father of the porn star, the moment he talks to his daughter on the phone and tells her how he saw the film and didn’t recognise the woman she had become was perhaps the most chilling and set the tone for the film.
Linda Lovelace was fortunate in some respects; she came out the other side and was able to prove what happened to her. A spokeswoman for change, Linda Lovelace deserved the respect afforded her in this biopic. Lovelace has to be considered as one of the most outstanding films of 2013.
Ian D. Hall