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Sex-Positive
USA 2024
produced by Laura Singleterry, Ben Matheny, Gabrielle Almagor (executive), Peter Woodward (executive), Fouad Zeton (executive)
directed by Peter Woodward
starring Katherine Ellis, Aaron Long, Ashton Leigh, Belle Eclair, Juliana Destefano, Jeez Loueez, Tierney Malloy, Anthony Del Negro, Ty Autry, Christian Menace, Lydia Kolda, Gogo McGregor, Yamil Rodriguez, Brandon Pitts, Brady Box, Xena Zeit-Geist, Peter Woodward, Ben Matheny, Terese Aiello, Ryan Baughman, Lara Grice, Gerald Brodin, Zach Rogers, Tracy Camp, Spencer Sticker, Chris Ferro, Lorna Street Dopson, Mike Makar, Liat Krongrad
written by Marie Kirby, Peter Woodward, music by Doug Milledge
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Having just unceremonously dumped by her date and haing broken her
heel, Virginia (Katherine Ellis) finds herself forced to accept a ride by
a(n admittedly rather attractive) stranger, Jake (Aaron Long) - who even
promises her to try and borrow a pair of shoes from on of his housemates
for her way home. When Virginia follows him into his home though, she
walks right into an orgy - and it seems this is the most normal thing at
the place, and Jake is really cool with it, and all those participating
are really ok with Virginia walking in on them. And they prove to be a
really nice bunch ... only Jake's a bit creepy as he wants to write a sex
blog - with her as his test subject for all kinds of perversions ... and
one doesn't have to be too straight-laced to turn such a guy down on the
spot. However, Virginia is soon evicted from her shoebox flat, and having
nowhere else to go she returns to the house Jake's living at and pretty
much asks for asylum - and everyone's very welcoming, with nobody forcing
her to do anything. However, Virginia gracually loses her inhibitions,
going so far as to walk around in the nude like all of her housemates. She
even accompanies them to a sex club where she initially only goes to as
Jake's fake date, but ultimately she has sex with five guys (one after the
other that is), as many as she had had her entire love so far. She feels
freed, and decides to become the subject of Jake's blog after all - and
that really frees her, sexually. But she has never given up on the idea of
true love, and during all of her sexual explorations has fallen in love
with Jake, who though has promised to never lay hands, let alone anything
else, on her for the duration of their experiment. And that really becomes
a problem, especially when to over-compensate, Virginia tries to fix the
lovelife of her housemates, and in general makes things much worse ... To
perhaps over-generalize things, there are not many romantic comedies about
sexual liberation and a hedonistic lifestyle that feature copious amounts
of (male and female) full frontal nudity and pretty obvious (if strictly
softcore) sexual situations. And Sex-Positive is very good at doing
just that, at telling a story with much heart and plenty of humour amidst
a cast of promiscuous, sex-crazed and exhibitionist characters - only the
way the story is told and filmed, the many sex scenes don't really feel
exploitative or sleazy, basically because they're part of the story and of
a lifestyle that's portrayed for a change without any false reservations
or moral high ground, or cameras strategically turning away for anything
but at times comical reasons. And weirdly enough, all of this makes the
film seem almost innocent. Apart from all of this what also makes the film
though is Katherine Ellis, who's giving a pretty strong central
performance as the woman losing her inhibitions but keeping her good
faith, and more than anything else she really carries what's a really
entertaining, sexy and very unusual rom-com.
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