About Cherry (2012)

There have been numerous films to come along regarding the adult film industry, but usually come off a bit comical. Thanks to films like Boogie Nights, they showed the darker side creating something a bit more interesting. The latest About Cherry tackles some of the same style subject matter but from a bit different perspective. Will it be able to deliver the needed emotion to make this work or will it take a more artsy route losing its edge?

About Cherry follows a troubled girl who moves to San Francisco and gets involved in the porn industry and a cocaine-addicted lawyer. This film is pretty much along the same lines as Boogie Nights, but doesn't have its charm or star power. The performances here are well done, but the film just seemed to limp along at a slow pace. At times it was hard to figure out what this film wanted you to get out of it, other than just sadness. This slow decent of this young woman is an interesting concept for the film to work from, but the lack of emotion throughout just left it a bit stale. Nobody was bad in this film; they just seemed to not be giving it their all to deliver any of the drama you really care about. Most of this issue seemed to be more due to bad dialogue than bad acting. Kudos go out to the cast and crew for taking the chance to deliver an proactive movie and going towards that extra mile to deliver, but there was just numerous missed chances here.

Even with the addition of great actors Heather Graham, James Franco, and Dev Patel this movie just can't handle delivering what it set out to do. With this type of film it will affect everyone different so make sure to head out and give it a shot. If it evokes some sort of response whether good or bad, then in the end it was an effective film.

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Fmovies: The eighteen year-old Angeline (Ashley Hinshaw) raises money with a session of naked pictures and leaves her alcoholic and dysfunctional parents fleeing to San Francisco with her friend Andrew (Dev Patel). They rent a room in the apartment of the gay Paco (Vincent Palo) and Angeline finds a job in a strip club and Andrew in a bookstore. Soon Angeline has a love affair with the drug-addicted lawyer Frances (James Franco) and joins the adult industry making porn. Meanwhile the lesbian director Margaret (Heather Graham) becomes obsessed on her.

"About Cherry" is a movie with a pointless story of a shallow teenager without moral principles that leaves her alcoholic parents to become a porn-star. The characters are poorly developed and most of them are unlikable. Angeline is actually a bisexual teenager without any moral principle and maybe nymphomaniac. The situations are also shallow and the movie is neither a drama or romance nor a soft-porn. The only thing that worths is the beauty of the lead actress. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): "Doce Tentação"

I think this is the most shallow film I have ever seen. "About Cherry" is about a bunch of one dimensional people dealing with the most artificial, superficial problems imaginable. Angelina runs away from an alcoholic mom and dad to become...a porno star, yawn. The entire cast is soap opera beautiful, and the performances are mostly soap opera quality, with the exception of Dev Patel, who's talents are wasted in this bomb. How did he even wind up in this thing? James Franco, (who I greatly admire) will do anything for a laugh or a paycheck obviously. Here he plays a dope addict in lust with the porn actress, yawn. "About Cherry" is an indie film, gone horribly wrong. Obviously directed by a horny, younger man, judging by the amount of cheap nudity and (un)erotic lesbian story lines. There is not one moment of this film that feels real, and not one character that is remotely interesting or believable. But Cherry is hot and shows her boobs..a lot.

About Cherry fmovies. Most movies about the business of pornography are moralistic films, showing the exploitation that grinds its participants down and steals their souls (to mix a metaphor).

This is not one of those.

As a movie, it's not sure whether the title character is being ruthlessly exploited, or joyously empowered. She's one or the other both or neither.

A lot of peripheral characters and subplots are drawn in, but all are handled perfunctorily. A lot of star power -- Heather Graham, James Franco, Dev Patel -- is wasted in cardboard roles.

Ashley Hinshaw, playing Cherry, is a beautiful actress, and looks a lot like a younger Heather Graham (no coincidence, I'm sure, in terms of their characters). She doesn't display much range here, and her character is not given a chance to grow (which could be the director's fault).

In the end, it's not bad, but there's nothing there. Despite showing the porn industry, it lacks sleaze; and yet you couldn't call it tasteful. Just dull.

I discovered this movie last summer when Heather Graham was doing some promo work. Being familiar with the website the movie's based on, I was pleased to stumble across the DVD.

Whilst I'm sure that porn insiders believe they have a unique tale to tell (including our writer), the reality is that most entrants to pornography come from similar troubled backgrounds. Ashley Hinshaw does a good job with the material she's given. She's certainly beautiful, further emphasised when compared to the stalwarts sharing a dressing room with her. The issue here is that there's simply not enough material to stretch this out.

The viewer can all too easily discern that it's heartbreaking to watch an innocent soul get trapped within such a vile industry. We've collectively witnessed countless documentaries and fiction that's hammered this point into our consciousness. Where this movie succeeds is showing that it's not always a cautionary tale. Is the industry as vile as one would expect? There's an element of professionalism in the manner that contemporary porn companies conduct themselves. This film makes no effort to portray the seedy act of hardcore porn as being produced haphazardly. I was glad of this as it's lazy stereotyping to suggest that in a digital world there's still fat guys calling all the wrong shots behind the camera.

Hinshaw conveys the naivety you'd expect when embarking upon Angelina's journey, but over time her independence grows. Whether it's distancing herself from a difficult family and worshipful best friend, to accepting more personal and emotionally troubling roles at work. The progression seems credible, with minor pacing issues troubling me. It's difficult to comprehend how much time passes between each stage of Angelina's process.

Hinshaw's Angelina has to deal with a boyfriend and a best friend, both male, both with wildly different expectations, but similar opinions of her work. However when the story falls back on their objections, perhaps I was unfairly expecting more than those objections on their own. James Franco plays a smaller role and I suspect he'll be thankful. There's no exploration of his potentially intriguing character at all, which is breathtaking considering his talent and reputation. My question now is what attracted Franco to such a limited role, irrespective of how much screen time it involved? The main issue I have is the quality of the dialogue. There's one particular sequence where the characters simply repeat themselves across multiple scenes which stands out for criticism. Porn insider Lorelei Lee has writing credits, which explains the accuracy and fluidity of the porn terminology, but also the lack of emotional depth in the script. A solid movie could potentially have become a good one. Any film such as this will hope to use the lead character's personal relationships as a crutch, as it's the only way to bring this type of movie to life.

Having recently watched this season's Hollywood Reporter Roundtable for 2013's Best Actress projected nominees, the one constant theme they agreed on was a dearth of quality material to go around. Sally Field, Marion Cotillard, Amy Adams and much more bemoaned the struggles of lead roles worth their attention. Perhaps this is why young Ashley Hinshaw took such a risk to bare all for this movie. It's become fashionable to risk a career to lay claim to a 'gutsy' or 'ambitious' portrayal to pad a resume

A movie about a hot young woman getting into the porn industry, staring James Franco and Dev Patel? Can't go wrong, right? Wrong!

What I liked: I liked the fact that without watching porn, I got to see an amazingly beautiful Ashley Hinshaw tease the camera, have sex multiple times, show her breasts, and play with herself. I enjoy any movie where young people spontaneously leave the town they have spent their whole lives in and hit the road with only the clothes on their back. My favorite part of the film was the fact that it was almost a feminist movie; at the very least it had speckles of feminism. Cherry is left and called a disgusting whore by a man (James Franco) she was falling in love with, called a huge disappointment by her mother, and loses her best friend because of how she has chosen to make money. A woman exercising control over her own body scares the living poop out of 95% of us men, but Cherry doesn't care too much about what people think.

What I didn't like: I have seen James Franco in a lot of movies (and, of course, Freaks and Geeks) and have enjoyed each and every one. I didn't even know he was in this movie until the opening credits, which was a pleasant surprise. Then, I met his horribly clichéd character; a man who dreamed of being an artist as a child, was put down, and instead became a lawyer. He know has money, but always wonders what could have been. Because of these regrets he is a drug addicted narcissist. If, before I watched, someone would have told me that Franco plays a clichéd part, I would have still assumed his acting would have been enough to make it enjoyable- it wasn't. Dev Patel, although I haven't seen him in anything besides Slumdog Millionaire, was respected in my mind. Unfortunately, he also badly plays a clichéd character. The nerdy (probably gay) best friend of a hot chick who watches said hot chick fall in love with other guys and is therefore miserable. The scene where their roommate Paco takes Patel to a gay bar is one of the most unbelievable, horribly acted, scenes in this wacky movie. The award for worst, most unbelievable scene goes to the part of the movie where Cherry and Patel first arrive in San Francisco. They have never been to the city, apparently have little to no money, and set up an interview for a room in a loft. The interview lasts less than a minute- they meet Paco, Paco shows them the room, they say they'll take it, and they begin unpacking. Seriously? I doubt this could even happen in the smallest community in America.

I can write pages upon pages about how bad this movie was, but I'm getting bored and feeling suicidal just from these short paragraphs. After posting this review, I will do everything in my power to erase the memory of this film, in order to still have some respect for James Franco.