Today I was feeling the call of the classics so I wandered over to our library of awesome old movies and started scrabbling around for something great. Distraction after distraction popped into my path but once I read the description for "Resurrection of Eve" I knew I had to see it. Head trauma, sleazy husbands and the lure of Marilyn Chambers aside, these simple words hooked me "for its attention to the actor's dramatic performances" and I do love me a good plot with my sex!
Well they don't waste any time getting to the icky bits now did they? First scene, a young Eve meets an "old friend" of her father's, his job in the plot - creep out the viewers and establish young Eve's age (13). A lot of these old movies seem to have a scene in them that's at least a little gag inducing but be full warned this scene is way worse than a little gag worthy. At least Eve's mother ended it by beating the SOB up and trying to comfort her daughter.
After that, I'd like to say things get better and in some ways it does Eve meets Frank who quickly seduces her though he constantly worries about marrying a 'stuck up broad' which Eve supposedly is. She's also loyal, loving and not at all shy about wanting to have sex with Frank, but he worries she's actually sleeping with black men anyway and accuses of her of doing just that. Eve runs out and gets into a horribly disfiguring car accident. When they put her back together again, she's a blond (and apparently way more beautiful than ever before, yes they make special mention of just how hot she is now as opposed to before) Frank almost immediately proposes.
After the wedding, Frank realizes he can't 'date' anymore because no single woman wants to date a married man. So Frank decides that swinging is the way to get to have his cake and eat it too. Eve doesn't want to at first but agrees to go to a party, where Frank fucks someone else's wife but Eve fucks no one. Afterwards Frank berates her for not fucking someone else as a courtesy! No I'm not kidding.
It goes on, Frank continues to push and Eve relents, eventually fucking other guys and learning to like screwing strangers and friends more than she likes sleeping with her self-centered husband, eventually leaving him mid party after his original fears are realized while he watches from across the room. The entire film features more insight into Frank's reasoning and desire than into Eve's, she might be the one having the "resurrection" but the movie could as easily be titled "All About Frank."
This film has one other major failing - a large part of the sex. It's so modest it could be a bunch of modern "Skinimax" type titles. You do get the occasional shot of bush or an erect cock but men are pressed tightly to women so you don't see any of their naked torsos. The occasional shots of brief oral, one or two insertions (from a safe distance and just the right angle so you don't see much) lots of kissing, that's about it and less obviously scorching hot than watching "True Blood." Example: the most climatic sex scene of the movie is told in flashes of bongo drums, the moaning face of Marilyn, and choppy shots of other people having sex.
This review is getting pretty long and it's probably because I really wanted to like this movie, to find something redeeming I could recommend. Unfortunately the more I watched the less I had to recommend it as a porn or even a film. It's watchable, kind of engrossing (in a Liftetime train wreck way, without an uplifting ending) but it's so full of ick I can't even begin to figure out where to start. A plot that's supposed to be about a female character that offers more insight into the male lead's motivation than her own. The concept that a woman who experienced sexual abuse at an early age needs to be forced into opening up sexually - by forcing her to have sex with other men that she has no desire for. Ick, just - ick.
I will give them this "Resurrection of Eve" was well acted. Pretty much across the board the acting was a definitely a step up from other porn features I've seen. But this movie will probably infuriate any woman that watches it unaware of how completely backwards it is.