The Upcoming
  • Culture
    • Art
    • Cinema
      • Movie reviews
      • Film festivals
    • Food & Drinks
      • News & Features
      • Restaurant & bar reviews
      • Interviews & Recipes
    • Literature
    • Music
      • Live music
    • Theatre
    • Shows & On demand
  • Fashion & Lifestyle
    • Accessories
    • Beauty
    • News & Features
    • Shopping & Trends
    • Tips & How-tos
    • Fashion weeks
  • What’s On
    • Art exhibitions
    • Theatre shows
  • Tickets
  • Join us
    • Editorial unit
    • Our writers
    • Join the team
    • Join the mailing list
    • Support us
    • Contact us
  • Interviews
  • Competitions
  • Special events
    • Film festivals
      • Berlin
      • Tribeca
      • Sundance London
      • Cannes
      • Locarno
      • Venice
      • London
      • Toronto
    • Fashion weeks
      • London Fashion Week
      • New York Fashion Week
      • Milan Fashion Week
      • Paris Fashion Week
      • Haute Couture
      • London Fashion Week Men’s
  • Facebook

  • Twitter

  • Instagram

  • YouTube

  • RSS

CultureCinemaMovie reviews

Lovelace

Lovelace | Movie review
3 June 2013
Jennifer Atkinson
Avatar
Jennifer Atkinson
3 June 2013

Amanda Seyfried delivers the performance of her career as 70s porn star icon Linda Lovelace in a biopic set to blow open preconceptions of the blue movie industry. Based on the true stories of Linda Boreman, Lovelace contains two contrasting accounts of a naive girl in her early twenties, inadvertently caught up in the turbulent world of pornography.

After escaping a semi-oppressed life under her mother (played by an unrecognisable Sharon Stone), Linda moves in with her husband Chuck Traynor (Peter Sarsgaard). The downhill spiral that ensues seems partly blamed on financial difficulties and, before a year of marriage is up, Linda is introduced to the world of porn as the star of Deep Throat.

Linda’s juxtaposing stories have caused much deliberation on the actual truth behind Lovelace and this film explores both concepts so convincingly that the viewer is none the wiser. At first, Linda is introduced as a sexual liberator: the poster girl for the sexual revolution, carefree and with the aspirations of a real actress. In love with the limelight and under the protection of her husband, the scenario is controversial but palatable.

This is soon replaced by Linda Lovelace as a victim of domestic abuse: she is beaten, raped, degraded, but utterly dependent on Chuck since her mother’s assertion that a woman’s role is to obey her husband.

Lovelace’s star-studded cast includes a whole host of well-known actors such as Juno Temple, James Franco (as the infamous Hugh Hefner), Adam Brody, Wes Bentley and Chloe Sevigny. With an indie feel to the overall film, Lovelace is intelligent without being pretentious, heartbreaking without being delicate and humorous without being facetious.

Sarsgaard is at his best, presenting Chuck at his most loving and most cruel. Categorically the best actor for the job, Sarsgaard has played many unpredictable characters, while Seyfried took more of a risk to play Linda. The actress has come up trumps as the dark haired, freckled “girl next door” who revolutionised the porn industry, making it more accessible and moving it away from the blonde bimbos that previously saturated blue movies.

Although the content is not everyone’s cup of tea, Lovelace is a considerate depiction of Linda’s life: a compilation of sex, drugs, rock and roll, alongside a porn star’s trials and tribulations. Ironically, the film almost mirrors the modern celebrity lifestyles that currently adorn the pages of our magazines. Definitely one to watch this summer.

Jennifer Atkinson

Lovelace is released nationwide on 23rd August 2013.

Watch the trailer for Lovelace here:

Related Itemsreview

More in Movie reviews

Imperial Blue

★★★★★
Guy Lambert
Read More

MLK/FBI

★★★★★
Andrew Murray
Read More

Sing Me a Song

★★★★★
Abbie Grundy
Read More

A Night of Horror: Nightmare Radio

★★★★★
Andrew Murray
Read More

Wonder Woman 1984

★★★★★
Jake Cudsi
Read More

Come Away

★★★★★
Sylvia Unerman
Read More

Murder Me, Monster

★★★★★
Andrew Murray
Read More

David Byrne’s American Utopia

★★★★★
Rosamund Kelby
Read More

Dreamland

★★★★★
Guy Lambert
Read More
Scroll for more
Tap
  • Popular

  • Latest

  • TOP PICKS

  • Female filmmakers lead nominees for the London Critics’ Circle Film Awards
    Cinema
  • Jeremiah Fraites – Piano Piano
    ★★★★★
    Album review
  • Persian Lessons
    ★★★★★
    Cinema
  • We Still Fax at ANTS Theatre Online
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • Lonely the Brave – The Hope List
    ★★★★★
    Album review
  • Identifying Features
    ★★★★★
    Cinema
  • 23 Walks
    ★★★★★
    Cinema
  • Live Lab at The Yard Theatre: An interview with associate director Cheryl Gallagher
    Theatre
  • We Still Fax at ANTS Theatre Online
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • We Ask These Questions of Everybody: An interview with Amble Skuse and Toria Banks
    Theatre
  • Identifying Features
    ★★★★★
    Cinema
  • We Still Fax at ANTS Theatre Online
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • WandaVision: Marvel’s charming sitcom proves an astounding success
    ★★★★★
    Cinema
  • The Queen’s Gambit: A chess story that’s not about the moves but the motives
    ★★★★★
    Cinema
  • Undercover at Morpheus Show Online
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
The Upcoming
Pages
  • Contact us
  • Join mailing list
  • Join us
  • Our London food map
  • Our writers
  • Support us
  • What, when, why

Copyright © 2011-2020 FL Media

Billy at the Union Theatre | Theatre review
Big Country at the Forum | Live review