They say there’s two sides to every story, and for directors Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman Linda Lovelace’s story was worth telling. It’s a Lifetime story in the making, but one that miraculously avoids all the trappings one would expect. Pointing a more sophisticated lens, the audience meets a different Linda Lovelace, one who lacks education, and is easily manipulated, by her older suitor turned husband Chuck Traynor.Most people know Deep Throat star Linda Lovelace by her rise to fame in the 70s. At the time she brought porn to a somewhat mainstream audience, and garnered attention for being one of the first stars of the porn industry. Now decades later audiences will get to see the real Linda Lovelace as Amanda Seyfried portrays her in the upcoming biopic.
For Seyfried this is unlike anything she’s taken on in her career, and surprisingly she embodies Lovelace well. Then there’s Peter Sarsgaard as her abusive husband slash porn pimp Chuck Traynor. He’s played disturbing roles before, but his performance breaks new ground of insanity for the actor. Rounding out the cast is Chris Noth, Adam Brody, Sharon Stone, and James Franco as Hugh Hefner. With a film that once had Lindsay Lohan attached to star, no one seems out of place in the film.
That said the trailer does an excellent job of bringing these elements that turn up in the film; from the small glimpses of the glitzy facade in the first act, to the inevitable breakdown that reveals something much more sinister in the second and third acts.
The official synopsis for Lovelace is as follows:
“Story of Linda Lovelace, who is used and abused by the porn industry at the behest of her coercive husband, before taking control of her life.”
The Inquisitr’s opinion aside, Lovelace made a killing at the Sundance Film Festival and was picked up by Radium-Weinstein. The Hollywood Reporter said of the film:
“Given all the ways a project like this could have gone wrong, the result is surprisingly good on several fronts, beginning with a shrewd structure that fosters an intelligent dual perspective on the public and private aspects of the Deep Throat phenomenon. ”
Lovelace hits theaters on August 9.