In the Closet

Title:  In the Closet
Studio:  Girl Candy Films
Director/Writer:  Nica Noelle
Released:  May 2013
Performers:  Dyanna Lauren, Darla Crane, Gracie Glam, Sophia Jade, Jelena Jensen, Magdalene St. Michaels, Faye Reagan

Let me say at the outset that this video is highly recommended for anyone who:  A) is a fan of Nica Noelle’s directorial work; B) lipstick lesbian videos; C) likes a little story and character development with their erotica; or D) is a fan of any of the ladies in the list of performers above.  

Girl Candy’s In the Closet is pure Nica Noelle from start to finish.  Let’s start with the cast.  To call this an “all star cast,” is underselling it by quite a bit.  Words like “legendary,” “hall of fame,” and “amazing” also fall short.  I mean look at this list.  It’s like the 1927 New York Yankees of female porn stars.  And, if you happen to have a breast fetish (I’m a leg man myself, but I certainly can appreciate a nice set of headlights when I see them), this video is for you.  Even if all we got to do was see these ladies get naked and do the horizontal mambo it would be worth the price.

Ah, but there’s more to this video than beautiful women who are among the most sought after performers in adult videos.  I said this was pure Nica Noelle, didn’t I? It would be too much to say that Nica has “perfected” the craft of storytelling.  No one deserves that sort of pressure.  But the number of people making adult videos who have a similar ability to weave sex and storytelling into a seamless erotic garment is a low order prime number.  

In the Closet is also typical Nica in that her script makes demands upon the performers.  They must be able to deliver convincing dialog as the characters they portray (they succeed, especially Dyanna Lauren), AND they must be able to deliver authentic sex play AS those characters (everyone succeeds at this, particularly Magdalene St. Michaels); they must make us believe that what we are watching is both real and spontaneous (again, everyone in the video delivers on this criteria). 

SO, the cast… 

This bevy of beauties is enough to make your underwear a little tight or a little damp depending on how you’re equipped.  One of my all time favorites, Darla Crane is in it.  I swear all I have to do is see her freckled face on the screen and I’m instantly at full arousal.  Several others in my list of favorite female performers are here as well, including the legendary Dyanna Lauren, the incredibly talented and passionate Magdalene St. Michaels (who once inspired me to write a piece of short fiction called “Dream Date,” which you can read here if you like), and the totally scrumptious Jelena Jensen whose magnificent endowment is the stuff of wet dreams.

But wait, there’s more.  We get not one, but two helpings of the totally yummy Gracie Glam who has become one of porn’s more versatile performers, playing tops and bottoms with equal skill as well as playing both older and younger than her actual age depending on what is needed for the story.  She can play innocent or the vixen.  And, of course, she’s beautiful – that goes without saying.

The completely delicious Sophia Jade and another of porn’s hottest redheads Faye Reagan round out the lineup for In the Closet.  What a treat!

So, what’s this thing about anyway? 

This movie is about women who are struggling with their sexuality.  Two as they reach middle age.  Another who is trying to decide whether or not she is bisexual.   Darla Crane’s character is married but not too happily to an oblivious clod deftly played by Michael Whiteacre.  Darla’s character has a significant amount of cognitive dissonance because she has started to be attracted to her office mate, played by Gracie Glam, who, unbeknown to Crane, reciprocates the attraction.  Still with me?  Dyanna Lauren, is divorced and an empty nester to boot, and she is Darla Crane’s best friend.  Darla thinks Dyanna’s character is going through a mid life crisis – but is she?  I review; you decide. 

Dyanna and Darla have lunch one day and Dyanna relates an experience she had during a recent vacation.  The “experience” was with Sophia Jade.  I won’t go into the details, but it’s a great opening scene and the set up is well worth watching, particularly the moment where things really get hot in a hotel hallway – Nica Noelle makes full use of her film making chops here, using pictures to replace dialog in a very effective sequence just before the first kiss.  As she is relating this experience to Darla, Dyanna speculates that she may be done with men.  This throws Darla for a loop, but it also gives her a new perspective from which to view her attraction for Gracie Glam. 

Magdalene St Michaels plays the office predator where Darla and Gracie work and she preys on Gracie.  It’s not that Gracie doesn’t want to have sex with women – she’d just rather have it with Darla than Magdalene, because she actually likes Darla.  It’s pretty much always a pleasure to watch Magdalene have sex, regardless of her partner, particularly if it’s a woman.  She totally commits to the scene and her focus is absolute.  Gracie is reluctant at first, knowing she’s being taken advantage of in what is clearly a slam dunk sexual harassment episode.  But once she gives in, she goes for the gusto.  Enough said about that.  Gracie feels pretty bad afterwards though and after telling Darla she’s not feeling well, goes home.

Dyanna has given Darla a lot to think about, and she does some of her thinking in a bar where Raven Rockette is performing some rather dark folk music with a lot of angst.  This is the set up for a scene between Jelena Jensen, who plays the bartender, and Faye Reagan.  It starts out looking like a Darla/Faye hook-up, but Darla has someone else in mind and eventually leaves.

Faye is an easy mark for Jensen, who elicits the confession that Reagan’s boyfriend doesn’t think she knows enough about sex to be very good at it.  Oh my.  Jensen becomes the teacher and Faye Reagan, who can still play the waif, the willing pupil.  This scene is really hot but I have to ask why it was in this movie?  It doesn’t really advance the plot and it creates the impression that Nica needed four scenes to make a movie and this was number four.  This was my only real quibble, and it’s a minor one, with In the Closet.  I have no objection to the pairing itself, because it worked really well.  Jensen and Reagan were wonderful together, with excellent chemistry, and they’re both beautiful so who wouldn’t want to see them naked and having sex?  There was enough of an older/younger vibe (barely) to fit the overall theme of the video, but that’s all.  This scene was not really part of the story and could just as easily been part of a different video production. I also don't know why this pairing was on the cover since the story really isn't about them.

And now we’re in the home stretch.  We've had several opportunities by now to see Darla and Gracie exchange looks full of meaning in the office and the whole point of the movie seems to be to get these two into bed, or at least on a sofa, which is where they end up.  Gracie is upset after her encounter with Magdalene and tells Darla about it.  Darla is, of course, shocked.  BUT, you can see that the revelation leaves her thinking about her own feelings for Gracie and hoping that she might have a chance with her.  Gracie tells Darla that she went through with the encounter with Magdalene in part to see if she really was bisexual.  She didn’t enjoy the experience (which is not supported by the evidence we’ve already seen on our screens) she says, but she might enjoy it if she was with someone she was attracted to.  At this point there’s a long pause where the two women try to decide who is going to kiss whom.  It doesn’t really matter who makes the first move because the result is the same: the two ladies provide the movie’s denouement on Darla’s couch.   It was worth the wait.  Gracie is hot for Darla.  Darla is desperate to find out what her feelings mean.  It’s like a match and gasoline.  Whew.  Someone call 9-1-1 because I think my underwear just burst into flames.

 

Final Thoughts

I sometimes wonder, seriously, whether or not Nica has acquired the ability to see into my mind.  Kind of scary how she always seems to know what I would like to see in a movie and then she goes out and makes it happen.  I hope while she’s in there she doesn’t run into anything she might find objectionable.  I may have to start wearing a tinfoil hat.

To summarize my review of In the Closet, the sex is hot, the dialog is well written and effectively delivered, the emotional portrayals ring true, the struggles the main characters deal with are appropriate/real/genuine, and the camera work, editing, lighting, and audio are all first rate.  So, close this web page and go buy a copy already.