The poster image for Pleasure places the skimpily dressed protagonist in the most precarious-looking flotation device since Chief Brody shouted “Get out of the water” in Jaws.
This cold, unblinking stare at Hollywood’s porn underbelly — one that throws more shade than any of the ambitious, competitive young women on screen — is a story framed by consent and made with assistance and co-operation of industry players, including celebrity porn-star agent Mark Spiegler (who plays himself). There are further appearances by adult sector performers Evelyn Claire, Kendra Spade, Dana DeArmond and Chris Cock.
Writer-director Thyberg’s embedded and studious approach to explicit and sometimes violent scenes only darkens the tone of an already inverted, messed-up Cinderella story.
For all the #ProudSlut hashtags on social media and faux empowerment mantras (“Girls Run Things” is emblazoned across the heroine’s favourite T-shirt), there’s no room for sex positivity in this gruelling, misogynistic and toxic industry.
Bella Cherry (newcomer Sofia Kappel) arrives in Los Angeles from Sweden, with dreams of becoming the next porn superstar. She has boundaries and, working with her agent, there are legal documents to sign and hygiene measures to undertake, before she gets to work on her first scene.
There is no evidence of human trafficking or drug abuse. It’s the best of all best possible porn worlds.
And yet, as Bella quickly discovers, pornography has now become so extreme and violent that she must fall into line if she hopes to make a name for herself.
She signs up for increasingly dangerous duties, including a horrific, isolated “rough” shoot after which she screams at her agent: “They raped me for hours.”
Working with cinematographer Sophie Winqvist Loggins, writer-director Thyberg finds ingenious angles and original choreography to shoot pornographic shoots. For all the nudity and thrusting on screen no one could describe Pleasure as voyeuristic or titillating.
Sofia Kappel is both steely and vulnerable in the central role, whether she’s calling her mother to cry about the internship that her family believe she has signed up for, posing provocatively for Instagram, reaching around for shaving, or back-stabbing her friends.
There will be back-stabbing.
