She's Come Undone

Title:  She’s Come Undone
Studio:  Evil Angel
Director/Writer:  Dana Vespoli
Release Date:  June 5, 2013
Performers:  Dana Vespoli, Sovereign Syre, Julia Ann, Presley Hart, Lea Lexis, India Summer*, Sinn Sage*, Manuel Ferrara*

Before I go any further with this review I just want to stand up and shout BRAVO!  This is an outstanding piece of writing, directing, and acting from the mind of one of porn’s most brilliant performers/directors, Dana Vespoli.  Well done Ms. Vespoli.  Well f’ing done.

There are very few porn features that could stand on their own merits as “movies,” without the explicit sex.  If you take the sex out of pretty much any other porn video you would have nothing.  If you took the sex out of She’s Come Undone, there would still be something left worth watching.   

If you are someone for whom porn is just wank-fuel then you should NOT watch this feature, much less purchase or rent it.  You won’t like it.  It isn’t set up like your standard four fuck scene porn video, and you’ll go nuts trying to FF through it to find “the good stuff.”  In fact, I’d feel better if I knew you weren’t going to watch it because YOU DO NOT DESERVE TO SEE IT.  It would be pearls before swine. 

For the non-raincoat crowd, PLEASE buy this video and tell Evil Angel you want to see MORE MORE MORE from Dana Vespoli.  Trust me, you will absolutely love every frame of this masterpiece.  Every f’ing frame.  If I sound like I’m gushing here, you’re right – I am, and with good reason.  Holy crap.  Dana Vespoli has done a lot of really good work, some of which I've reviewed on this blog.  But, this, well, this is in a different category all together.  “Brilliant,” “inspired,” “edgy,” “raw,” “emotionally rich,” “nuanced,” “multi-layered,” “wonderfully complex” "dark" – all good descriptions of She’s Come Undone. 

Dana is too young to know that The Guess Who recorded a song titled She’s Come Undun (from Canned Wheat, 1969, RCA Records).  As a public service, I include a link to the lyrics here.  She’s Come Undone is also the title of a 1997 novel once featured on Oprah’s book club.  I’m not sure why I mentioned either one of those things here.

This video has the standard four sex scenes we've all come to know and love, but they’re not presented/packaged in a standard way.  There’s a lot of cutting back and forth between sex and dialog.  The set ups are in the form of an encounter between Dana’s character and a prostitute played by Sovereign Syre (well played), and sometimes the dialog plays over the video of the sex.  It’s an effective exposition technique, and a great way to weave the sex and the story together.

The story itself is told as a dialog between Dana Vespoli’s character (some sort of famous, high powered, Hollywood film director/actress) and a prostitute played by Sovereign Syre whom Dana has hired for an evening.  Dana, we find out later, has been kicked out by her wife, brilliantly played by Julia Ann, and has been living in a hotel ever since while trying to figure out a way to get back together with the woman she really loves but can’t seem to remain faithful to.  Evil Angel's publicity for the video describes it as a ...downbeat tale of soul searching, alienation and the quest for love...Yup.  That about sums it up.

Dana's character is very tough.  We know this because she 1) smokes, and 2) drives an F-150.  That's pretty butch, right?  Oh, and she wears eye make up and pretty much that's it.  She plays this character as very masculine, which contrasts nicely with Sovereign Syre's more feminine look.

There are some nice cameos by India Summer, Sinn Sage, and Manuel Ferrara.  I wish the Sage/Summer bit had been longer.  The full on sex scenes more than make up for this, and even the raincoat crowd, if they ignored my plea not to watch this video, will find some very wankable material here.  I know I did.

It's hard to pick a favorite sex scene because each one had its own merits.  And, since Dana and Sovereign each get two scenes we, the viewers, should feel doubly blessed.  For my money, my two faves were Dana with the incomparable Julia Ann, who once again proves that she's more than just a pretty face and nice pair of tits who can fuck -- this woman can ACT.  She blew me away with her portrayal of Vespoli's wounded spouse.  My other favorite was the final scene between Dana Vespoli and Sovereign Syre.  The entire film builds to this scene and by the time they really go at each other it's about as intense a sex scene as you are going to find in any feature coming out of porn valley.  

I don't want to sell the work of Presley Hart or Lea Lexis short though.  Their portrayals were spot on, pitch perfect, and well done.  Dana gave them roles well suited to their talents and let them have at it.  The results?  Well, you'll have to judge for yourself but I think you'll agree with me that they were well chosen.

A couple of minor technical quibbles that I probably shouldn’t even mention because they were, well, minor.  But I will anyway because this is what critics do, right?  The hotel room where the main dialog was shot had a squeaky floor and we could hear every footstep the camera operator made.  That’s quibble number one.  Quibble number two is the number of jump cuts in the Vespoli/Syre dialog sequences.  Most of them were pretty minor but some, I thought, were rather jarring.  Perhaps that was intentional – a way to make an edgy film seem even more edgy; I don’t know.  It didn't do anything for me.

But those are quibbles.  This is a brilliant film by a brilliant film maker who has burst into my top five favorite directors (most of whom are women for some reason).  Dana Vespoli can write, she can act, she’s sexy as hell, she sure can fuck, and boy can she direct.  If you didn't know that before watching She’s Come Undone you sure will afterwards. 

Other than the technical quibbles mentioned above everything else about this video is perfect.  Good lighting, great pictures, excellent sexual performances, outstanding acting -- all good.  Well worth your hard earned cash.

Go watch this video!  Go!  Go now!

*India Summer, Sinn Sage, and Manuel Ferrara are listed as "non sex" performers in the IAFD listing for this video.  In truth, India and Sinn actually do have sex, albeit briefly, and Manuel at least simulates it with Sovereign Syre later in the video.