Movie Review: Electra Luxx

Electra Luxx
2011
Starring: Carla Gugino, Marley Shelton, Adrianne Palicki, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Malin Akerman, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Justin Kirk, Timothy Olyphant and Julianne Moore as Mary, mother of the alleged Jesus Christ
Written, Produced and Directed (in 15 days) by: Sebastien Gutierrez

Sebastian Gutierrez must be a really nice guy.

Or Sebastian Gutierrez is the curator of the secret sex tapes for some of the most beautiful women in Hollywood.  "If you don't do my movie I will send this to TMZ.  Your career will be ruined.  Muh-hahahahaha."

"But if I'm in your film the same might be true."

"That's it, bitch.  I'm calling that guy from Vivid right now."

"Okay, okay, Sebastian.  I will be in your silly trilogy."

I don't know if that's how it really played out but would I be surprised?

Electra Luxx is the story about recently pregnant and retired porn star Electra Luxx.  She teaches a class that instructs women how to have sex like a porn star.  Electra basically tells women that men need them to be vocal and that they have to talk a lot and make sure it's dirty.  After class Electra gets a visitor, a young woman who wants to turns out to have the last batch of songs by her former lover, some rock star who died, who I assume is also the father of her unborn fetus.  These songs are all about Electra's breasts, her legs and her lovemaking skills and the woman thinks that she should have them.  There is one catch, of course. This woman has cheated on her fiance with the aforementioned rock star (actually killing the rock star during oral, but that's neither here nor there), and feels so guilty that she wants Electra to seduce her fiance so that they'll be even.  Electra originally says no but the woman gets drunk just so Electra can drive her home and then change her mind when she runs into the apparent fiance.   It actually isn't the fiance but a detective who was hired by the former rock star's band to find the lyrics. She gives over the lyrics right away and this leads us to the next thing in the disjointed plot, which includes a naked guy in an elevator, a Rupert Pupkin-esc porn blogger, an over-sharing detective and the mother of the alleged Jesus, Mary Christ.

And that's the main problem with Electra Luxx.  Gutierrez is trying to be Robert Altman or Paul Thomas Anderson, whose own Boogie Nights is minor classic, but he doesn't have the chops to pull off the cinematic murals that Altman was a master at.  It is hard to point at what part is the weakest but I will pick the script.  In moments the story can pass as entertainment and there is occasionally an interesting idea.  Like when the porn blogger, Bert Rodriguez, approaches Electra at a book signing and asks her how big her breasts are now that they're filled with milk.  Gugino, who throughout is great, sums up the pain of her past as she is trying to move forward with just a look.  And there's a moments with Bert's sister Cora where she wants to be naked on his porn blog and he has to confront his feelings of women as objects versus his views of his own sister.  This is handled ham-handedly but it passes for an interesting idea.  In the end there are too few of these.  Or if they're there we miss them as a result of the ineptness of the script's confusing plotting.  The dialogue is over-written and sometimes feels like Gutierrez was watching His Girl Friday while typing, trying to capture the amazing banter of that classic.  Sadly for the viewer, he doesn't come close.

Ironically, for as bad as the material is the performances at times are pretty decent.  Carla Gugino deserves some sort of an award for being able to raise the film to something that is at times passible.  I've been a fan of her work for a while.  There's some moderately entertaining scenes with Emmanuelle Chriqui and Adrianne Palicki, and Timothy Olyphant made me smirk.  I guess I can't fault the actors because in most situations, they seemed to salvage something.

Electra Luxx is the sequel to Gutierrez's earlier film Women in Trouble.  It is also the second film in a proposed trilogy about Electra Lux.  You don't need to see the previous film to dislike this one.  It actually wasn't too hard.  It was shot in fifteen days and I'm not holding that against it -- some of the great Budd Boetticher/Randolph Scott westerns from the 50's were shot in twelve.  Since Sebastian Gutierrez must be the nicest guy in the world, I'm hoping he can pull it out for the third installment, but I don't have high hopes.

Electra Luxx is a solid F.  It's so bad it made me really appreciate a film I was on the fence about.  See my review for Tamara Drewe.


Here is the trailer: