Nude Celebs: Juliette Marquis -

It should be easy to write a review for a movie that everyone seems to think is terrific. 2003's This Girl's Life which first appeared on Showtime, got good reviews from the critics, raves from viewers, `and was generally very well received. My problem is I was under whelmed. It's not bad, but based on all the things I'd heard, I expected better.

Basically, this slice-of-life drama follows the daily life of internet porn star Moon. She narrates most of the movie as if talking to a friend. Moon has lost her mother to suicide, and we meet her father, who suffers from Parkinson's disease.

Moon is happy in her work, and unapologetic about her lifestyle, because she likes sex, so she's she's doing something she likes to do. She does yoga to prepare herself for a scene, and frankly, one of the things that kind of put me off on this movie was their attempt to turn porn into some mystical life-awakening experience. Hey, guys, at the end of the day, it's having sex for money. I have absolutely no problem at all with that, but let's not turn it into something glamorous, because there's a lot about the adult industry that isn't.

On the other hand, I was very impressed with the scenes involving the father, played by James Woods. He did a great job as a man suffering from Parkinson's, and the interplay between the two characters was very well done. The father knows what his daughter does for a living, but he prefers to insist she's a vet, and asks if the "animals are behaving", to find out how she's being treated by her co-workers.

Another problem with the film for me was that after setting a liberated and positve tone through about three quarters of the movie, they suddenly switched gears and ended with a predictable and almost lame moral message. That was fine, but had a phony feel because of the first part of the movie. In short, I thought they snatched defeat out of the jaws of victory.

Apparently, based on the comments I saw, a lot of people expect great things from Juliette Marquis, who played Moon, and was appearing in her first film role. I hope so, because she is very pretty, but her implants aren't great (which made her a more realistic porn star, I guess), and even though her acting in this film was very good, she still reminded me of a lot of other pretty girls with bad implants who show up night after night in the cable skinploitation flicks. Personally, I hope she does much better.

As you'd expect of a film about a porn star, there's plenty of nudity. Although I think it drags in parts, this film is definitely worth seeing, but if you make the mistake of reading all the hype first as I did, you may be disappointed.