jtncsmistad
You've seen it all before. Poor little poor girl from a horror show home comes to the big bad city and is lured into the porn biz. Or maybe that's just me (he winks here).The twist in "About Cherry" is that this cheeky chick (the stupefyingly gorgeous Ashley Hinshaw) doesn't want to bust out of the skin trade at all. Screw that. In fact, she may have just laid into a brand spankin' new career! And then they all boinked happily ever after (he snickers here).
jerasica_99
I agree with other reviewers when they say this film is unrealistic. Not in the sense that it doesn't portray the sex industry correctly (I'm not qualified to make a judgment) but in the sense that many of the events that occur and the reasons that drive our protagonist into the porn industry are not hard hitting enough. For instance, at the start we see Cherry with her boyfriend, who compliments her beauty and suggests she takes professional pictures (so everyone can see her 'beauty'). This scene ignites her willingness later to enter the porn industry. I think the movie would have been better if they added a bit more darkness into the movie. I get that this film aims to challenge our perception of working girls, by showing us not all female sex workers are manipulated or forced into the porn industry against their will. But there was room for the film to delve more deeper into the psychological, social or environmental issues that may have influenced her decision or motivated any of the other 1 dimensional characters in the movie. As opposed to watching her hanging out in a strip-club, touching herself up in front of a camera, hooking up with a wealthy drug addict, dumping her best friend, shacking up with a lesbian colleague and ending up the other side of the camera. The End. That is not a movie, that's 102mins out of our lives that we will NEVER get back! In a nutshell, this is a movie about how a young women, sleeps her way to the top by becoming a Lesbian.Massive disappointment!
grantss
This movie had potential, but squandered it. The story of how a normal, average woman ends up in the porn industry had a lot going for it. It started well enough and seemed to be building to something profound. Instead, from a point it just drifts, and ends up going nowhere. At times it seems judgmental, then next moment titillating. Instead of objectivity the writer and director try to hedge their bets.On the plus side, Ashley Hinshaw is great in the lead role. Stunningly beautiful, and convincing. James Franco proves yet again that he is vastly overrated as an actor, coming across as a clueless kid in a school play. He is may well be the male version of Kristen Stewart...Heather Graham does well in a supporting role. Dev Patel seems a bit miscast in his role.
Tad Pole
" . . . disgust me." James Franco, as "cokehead" trial lawyer Francis, 18-year-old title porn starlet "Cherry's" (nee Angelina) short-term sugar daddy, seems out-of-character in his kiss-off remarks to her, and certainly not very WWCD (that is, What Would Charlie Sheen Do). This feature debut of writer\director Stephen Elliott is not marked by any particular strengths in its characterizations. Like most direct-to-video flicks featuring DVD covers that will pass the "sniff test" in "family" video stores while suggesting young female nudity, the actual amount of sex and birthday suits displayed in the movie itself is liable to leave the renter feeling ripped-off (even it he or she has waited until this title made its way to the two-for-a-dollar section of the store). Lacking the weight of a TV "after school special," this effort at "sexploitation" concludes with a moral along the lines of "every nice girl should do at least one porno to sow her wild oats, but then get behind the camera before the next big AIDS scare comes along." If the intention here is to make sex boring, ABOUT CHERRY succeeds nicely.
AD
