Ninja Thyberg takes a look at the current state of the pornographic industry, highly driven by social media and dominated both managerially and taste-wise by men. The results are uneven, starting very strong as we see our protagonist Bella (Sofia Kappel) evolve from small amateurish shoots to the weaker depiction of her reaching the mainstream.

A 19-year-old Swedish girl going by the name of Bella Cherry (Sofia Kappel) arrives to Los Angeles to make herself a name in the porno industry. Starting from nowhere and with close to no knowledge of the industry, she will have to bear and overcome many obstacles and challenges to the point of degrading herself and going against her own judgement.

Sofia Kappel is undoubtedly the high point of the film. She absolutely perfectly captures the emotional journey that Bella has to endure in order to make it through the industry. From the initial naivety of the newcomer to the fearless attitude, including breakdowns, nonchalant attitude and so on. She is equally good when interacting with other characters, as she shows various distinct feelings towards them: love and care towards her friend Joy (Revika Reustle), confidence and respect towards her first contact in the industry Bear (Chris Cock), and admiration and idolatry towards porn star Ava (Evelyn Claire).

It is also note-worthy, Thyberg’s election of using quite many real people from the industry, such as various actors and agents, prominently. Some in the background, some with bigger roles. Some playing themselves, some playing made-up characters. On top of them all, we should put, the already mentioned, Chris Cock. The real-life porn actor plays here a work-on-everything type of guy, including indeed acting in some shoots. As he calls himself, he is a fetish actor, basically used for “the most extreme of the extreme type of scenes” interracial, which yes “it sounds racist because… it is racist”. In the few scenes in which he appears, a bit at the beginning and in a key scene mid-way through the film, he acts a bit as the mentor and guide to Bella advising and helping her go through her struggles. But precisely that is the problem, he is so good that his brief appearances feel too short.

Then, the main problem with the film is its writing as it has quite a few plot holes, rushed twists and developments and underwhelming development.

Some characters that seem important (such as the mentioned Bear, or even the best friend Joy) appear and disappear during several moments in the film hurting the flow and cohesiveness of the story. One other character is the mother of the protagonist, who although only making herself present via phone call in a tipping point scene for the evolution of our main character feels inorganically inserted and even, after she says, “How is the exchange going?”, makes you wonder how such a shitty lie can allow you to travel to the other side of the world and work in a relatively public profession (not only through porn channels but also standard social media) and get through with it without you parents knowing about it. That was just plainly and simply quite baffling.

Also, the way that Bella transitions from only standard scenes to look for bookings for the most BDSM and hardcore ones seems as well rushed. Even if the idea behind it is her strong will to reach stardom, that does not seem like enough motive to drive such a radical change in the character in such a brief period of time. She seems to be doing fine enough and that she could spend a bit more of time getting herself acclimated before transitioning to the rougher genre.

All this ends up evolving into a weaker second half, where we delve more into already the glamorous and more mainstream type of world in the industry which, although being okay, it lacks all the emotion and rawness from the first half. That is except for when we reach an actual fantastic final 10-minutes where everything blows up again were our character let’s all her angst and rage out.

On the other hand, what the script very adequately looks into is the current prominence of social media as a key platform for a porn performer success. Those are the true catalyst of making your brand out of yourself which in the end might increase your revenue from independent streams or enhance your profile inside the same industry making you more desirable to agencies and audiences alike.

Another great element is the presentation of the still heavy male dominance over the industry, only one of the shoots is predominantly organised by women and you can actually feel how it is probably the most comfortable one for our rising star. The same with agents, all men. The same with the approach and point of view of the films filmed, it could be summarised in a “who has the dick has the power”. Aspect that actually comes to light in the great ending that we have already referred to.

Pleasure ends up being a good but flawed effort. Although its premise being quite an unoriginal one, young person arrives to Los Angeles to become famous, its twist going into the porn instead of cinema makes it different. Sure, you have movies such as Boogie Nights (1997, dir. Paul Thomas Anderson) but Pleasure, differently to the more over-the-top former one, is more grounded in a realist and naturalistic approach to the industry. It definitely has some plot and continuity issues but, its eye for detail and great lead performance by Kappel manage to keep your attention on seeing the occurrences that our main character has to go through and how she will deal with them.