DRAMA on Sexual Freedom: “Pleasure.” / “Her Body.”

“Pleasure” (2021, Tubi) drama based on director Ninja Thyberg's 2013 short of the same name about a young woman from a small Swedish town who moves to Los Angeles to become a porn star. 



       Anchored on lead star Sofia Koppel as Bella Cherry/Linnea, defiance and vulnerability, this little movie jars that many other big productions didn't. Ms Thyberg's direction verges from straight-up documentary courage to one-camera film school inventiveness. And what I see is a winner.

       I haven't seen a fine movie about the porn industry since big studio's “The People vs. Larry Flynt” (1996) by Milos Forman and “Boogie Nights” (1997) by Paul Thomas Anderson. 🎥👍📽


<>“Her Body” (2023, Roku) Czech drama film, based on a true story of Andrea Absolonová, who was a Czech diver and a member of the Czech high diving national team. She injured her spine when she was 20 years old in an accident when training for the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, diving from the 10m platform. She recovered from her injury, but did not qualify for the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Her problems persisted, so she retired from professional sports. Andrea would later become an adult model and pornographic actress who died from brain cancer in 2004 at the age of 27.



       Ms Absolonova’s life story is powerful enough to merit a cinematic shudder but it’s sad that the project was given to first-time director Natálie Císařovská. “Her Body” is a lumbering, idling bore. From the gymnastic training scenes to family dinner cliches to the porn sex sequences, this entire jaunt is lifeless. As the title role, Natalia Germani had a singular facial emotion. The only redeeming quality? The performance, albeit in the background, of Denisa Barešová as Andrea’s sister, Lucie. 🎭👎🎬

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