Intrigue

Aspiring actress Cicely has lost 57 pounds and landed her first movie role. The director didn't tell her about a nude scene. Reluctant to do it, she embarks on a personal journey that unveils secrets once hidden under her excessive weight.

In this comedy-drama Cece is the pretty, grownup daughter of a former 1970s "blaxploitation" movie sexpot, and when she tries to carve out her own fledgling acting career she vows that she won't become famous by taking all her clothes off, the way her mother did. But straightaway Cece is cast in a small-time screen drama playing a painter's model--and the role calls for extensive nudity. Will she or won't she strip for the (male) director, the (male) screenwriter, and their cameras? First-time filmmaker Davis was obviously working with a budget hardly bigger than Cece's film-within-a-film, and some gaffes slip through in the production values. But it's also a sly feminist farce that addresses the hypocrisy surrounding the last taboo in cinema: keeping your clothing on.—Anonymous

Twenty-something Cicely has a lot to work through. She's estranged from her mother, a Blaxploitation film star. Videos of her mother's nude scenes disgust Cece now and remind her of when her mother worked long hours and left her in the care of a boyfriend who sexually abused the pre-teen child. Cece's battled her weight for ten years, losing 57 pounds. An old boyfriend, Joel, casts her in a film he's directing for a tyrannical writer-producer who expects Cece to play nude scenes as an artist's model. She refuses to disrobe, not only for the film, but also with Joel in the privacy of their rekindled romance and with women in a sauna. Can she find the calm and will to disclose herself?—<jhailey@hotmail.com>