Lovelace

If it weren’t for the fantastic acting on display here by virtually the entire case — but especially Amanda Seyfried — there would be an argument that this movie should never have been made. Most biopics play fast and loose with reality. It’s unfortunately the nature of the beast. You’d think a person like the titular subject of this movie — arguably the first porn star ever and featured performer of the most financially successful X-rated movie of all time — would have led a life that doesn’t need embellishment or distortion of the facts. But Lovelace does so in so many ways as to be affront to the woman who endured it. So much of her personal history is ignored or rewritten, and even when the movie gets things right, it feels so surface-level or sanitized, you can almost feel the movie giving up any attempt at veracity in favor of hitting pre-ordained beats. But worse yet is how this movie is split into two narratives. For about half the movie, it treats Linda’s life, marriage, and rise to fame in the porn industry as the kind of Hollywood fairy tale girls dream of. That half of the movie feels so saccharine and anodyne, it’s borderline offensive. You don’t have to know a damned thing about Linda to know this half of the movie is utter rubbish. The second half reframes everything to show the abuse, her husband forcing her into prostitution, sexual assault, and more. It is a parade of misery, and while I have no doubt it’s all real, it’s so unceasing, it’s numbing. And worse yet, because the movie tells the story from two different vantage points, it feels like the movie is pulling some “both sides now” nonsense, lest it offend anybody. It ruins any authenticity the movie could’ve had. Only the acting saves this movie. Seyfried is an absolute force, and the supporting cast is full of excellent performances. For that alone, it gets a bump to dead average. If it weren’t for that, this movie’s appeasement strategy and liberal distortion of history is an insult to Linda.