About Cherry (2012)

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Better Late Then Never

It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

I agree with other reviewers when they say this film is unrealistic. Not in the sense that it doesn't portray the sex industry correctly (I'm not qualified to make a judgment) but in the sense that many of the events that occur and the reasons that drive our protagonist into the porn industry are not hard hitting enough. For instance, at the start we see Cherry with her boyfriend, who compliments her beauty and suggests she takes professional pictures (so everyone can see her 'beauty'). This scene ignites her willingness later to enter the porn industry. I think the movie would have been better if they added a bit more darkness into the movie. I get that this film aims to challenge our perception of working girls, by showing us not all female sex workers are manipulated or forced into the porn industry against their will. But there was room for the film to delve more deeper into the psychological, social or environmental issues that may have influenced her decision or motivated any of the other 1 dimensional characters in the movie. As opposed to watching her hanging out in a strip-club, touching herself up in front of a camera, hooking up with a wealthy drug addict, dumping her best friend, shacking up with a lesbian colleague and ending up the other side of the camera. The End. That is not a movie, that's 102mins out of our lives that we will NEVER get back! In a nutshell, this is a movie about how a young women, sleeps her way to the top by becoming a Lesbian.Massive disappointment!

This film had every opportunity to make a fair commentary about sex work being legitimate work. But instead opted for the softball ending. The third act was utterly disappointing in how unbelievably compromised it was. From Franco's drug addled boyfriend character turning to denigrate Cherry, to the total lack of consequence surrounding Margaret's relationship ending and her just simply replacing her former long-term live in girlfriend with Cherry. And ultimately Cherry's absurd move to being behind the camera, like it's a simple task any novice can accomplish with relative ease.It's as though the script for this film was only partially thought out. And the characters were maligned from the moment they hit the frame. None of the characters had a genuine connection to one another, for example the Francis/Cherry relationship process and especially the Andrew/Cherry dynamic. What a complete wash of over-simplification.This film is pretentiously fence-sitting and poorly actualized. Makes me sad, because it's a great opportunity that the filmmakers lost.

I just watched this movie. The thing about it is that the characters are very shallow. The acting is good but the characters lack depth and you don't understand why things happen.Most of the characters appear briefly and we never get to know what happens at the end. Cherry/Angelina's cocaine-addict boyfriend suddenly disappears and we never hear from him again. She argues with her best friend and we don't know what happens to him at the end. The same with her mom's abusive boyfriend and Heather Graham's girlfriend. It's like things happen for no reason. Thing just ... happen. Characters have no impact on the plot. They just come and go. The end is absolutely rubbish.It's a good movie if you are so bored and wanna kill some time but don't have high expectations.I would rate it 2 out of 10 but I gave 4 because acting wasn't that bad.

I'm not going to pretend to have liked the film's beliefs. It show us – although vaguely – the 'behind-the-scenes' of the internet porn industry. I believe we have watched them 'making-of-porn films' before: 'Boogie Nights, 1997'; '8mm, 1999'; 'Wonderland, 2003'; 'The Girlfriend Experience, 2009' and so it goes. These movies showed us the consequences of choice and greed; it was one of those first-times when you learned about the dark side of something you acquired pleasure from. 'About Cherry' doesn't show you consequences, it does not make you feel sympathy for the lead and by doing so we start to dislike her halfway into the film. Breaking most rules of the genre, 'Cherry' takes us somewhere the movie itself doesn't know yet (maybe few months from now and we will have theories). It however succeeds in giving rise to emotions long buried. It made me uncomfortable in a hateful way. I disliked the lead character, played brilliantly by Ashley Hinshaw who is mostly holding back her emotions throughout the film, well at least more than her clothes. We've seen this before, the dysfunctional family, the runaway under-age who ends up being a porn star; 'Star 80, 1983', anyone? The movie doesn't show us the disenchantment, the humdrum of making a porn movie although Hinshaw's transformation is something the filmmakers can be proud of; transformation into a successful person in the business of sex. Just what are they trying to tell us, is what makes you want to pull the hair. All bad things happen to good people; this movie crosses that out and says: bad people deserve bad things. The only trouble with this is that the 'bad' looks pretty alright to me, maybe even nice. Money and sex and suits with breathtaking view of San Francisco and what have you. There's one more thing I'm not going to do here; not judge. Getting laid every damn day and getting paid for it and also enjoying it (to hell with the tears, we've seen them done better) – as the movie suggests makes me not like anyone but Dev Patel's character. The charming, junkie-lawyer/ex-painter Franco is a treat alright but what in the Lord's name happened to Heather Graham? She's brooding most of the time and when she's not brooding most of the time she's having sex with another woman (dykes!). To top that, in a film filled with scenes of nudity and explicit sex she does not bare, not even a flash. In the end the movie is a build-up to more movies about internet-porn, like the upcoming 'Middlemen'. Lili Taylor also starred in 'The Notorious Bettie Page, 2005', which is an effective film, if I remember well. In the end it is also a beginning to an era of showing the glitz and glamour of the thirteen billion dollar porn industry and that it can be unending if you want it to be.