About Cherry

Logline: A drama centered on a troubled young woman who moves to San Francisco, where she gets involved in pornography and aligns herself with a cocaine-addicted lawyer.

Cast:  Ashley Hinshaw, James Franco, Heather Graham, Dev Patel

Directed by: Stephen Elliot

It was quite hard to find pictures for this movie that were appropriate to post on my blog. Being about a girl in the porn industry, About Cherry features a lot of explicit nudity and sexual intercourse. You may ask, well, why are you choosing it as a movie to review then? And I know there are a ton of other movies I could have chosen from, but here's the deal. Boogie Nights is one of my favourite movies. I'd go as far as to put it in my top 10, maybe even top 5. I think Paul Thomas Anderson is fantastic and every bit of that movie kept me fully entertained. If that could be so good, why not give another film about porn a chance? This isn't some 18+ Adult movie trying to be a feature; look at the cast... the girl from Chronicle, the guy from Slumdog Millionaire, James Franco, Roller Girl from Boogie Nights (Heather Graham). I guess I needed to defend my choice, and now I feel better, so let's move on.

Summary

About Cherry is literally about the life of a girl named Angelique that goes by the alias Cherry. Cherry has a really bad home life. Her mother is a drunk, her father is a drunk, and both her and her sister are scared for their lives constantly. One day Cherry's boyfriend convinces her to take pictures topless. It's $500, so she considers and ends up doing the gig. After seeing the opportunity she could have, she takes her best friend Andrew and moves to San Francisco. He's madly in love with her but she doesn't know. She starts doing porn, gradually accepting to do more explicit things, and she meets a cocaine addicted lawyer who she falls for.

Review

I can't say this movie is good. Not even just a little.

I will begin with my most positive judgement. This movie kept my attention for the first half completely. Not because I'm a guy, not because it was about porn, but because the scenes and pace were done well. I felt bad for Cherry because she grew up in such a rotten environment. I wanted to see what would happen to her. I also felt that the pornography scenes were very realistic and well done.

However, this film lacks good characters and conflict. So much so that when the halfway mark hits, there's really nothing left to see except for a bit of a spiral downwards. The movie never concludes itself, never had a voice, and never provides enough conflict to keep the movie interesting.

Topic of the Day

Two topics today. Conflict & Characters.

In terms of characters, this movie suffered because none of the people in it had any clear goals or motivations. Cherry wanted to get away and do porn for money to make a living. Ok, but that was established in the first 15-20 minutes. Now what? What's next for her? It became more of a porn than it did a movie from that point on because she was never really working towards anything. Her friend Andrew likes her, but never makes a move on her. So why is he even there to begin with? Her cocaine addicted lawyer does cocaine and knows she is in the porn industry - what was his purpose? When characters become nothing but people to fill runtime, the movie loses its direction completely because its characters are floating.

Conflict. I noted that the movie became a porn after Cherry's first goal was completed. It was around halfway into this movie that I completely lost interest because I realized, hey, nothing is actually happening right now. It started off well, so I kept expecting things to happen, but they never did. That's because there was no conflict. Nothing bad was happening. Cherry and Andrew were paying rent, living fine, she was enjoying the porn, he was having fun. So, what's the story about then? A girl getting naked? A guy clubbing? Not a very interesting plot unless you're looking for an 18+ Adult film to watch without feeling guilty.

Consensus

About Cherry starts off well and kept my attention until halfway through when I realized that nothing significant was going to happen to move the plot forward. The story became stagnant and turned into an excuse to have a girl naked on camera. The film lacked conflict, goal orientated characters, stakes being raised, and had little to no urgency at all. Unfortunately, aside from how good looking Ashley Hinshaw is, this movie is completely forgettable.

4/10