On the Doll

To start off with, I'm habitually bad at objectively rating movies. I know this, my wife knows this, and everyone around me knows this. I'm the kind of guy at the theater that likes a movie but can't explain why. If I like a movie, I like it 100% - and if I hated it, I'll recommend against people watching it.

"On the Doll" was the first movie I ever actually watched that I felt I could objectively rate and comment on without throwing some over-the-top rating to it. There's a LOT of reference to sex, but virtually no nudity. The theme is based around this post-high school, "grunge" style of direction that seems to be rampant amongst the college generation. In other words, the director tries to set the stage for the film on the backdrop of a sub-culture that many people are unaware of. He does this from three different angles: The Prostitute, The Teenagers, and the Hero.

Now, from the premise of the movie - we were supposed to be inundated with life revolving around people who were sexually abused as young kids. Honestly - I found this part of the movie very lacking, and not that I wanted them to explore this verbatim, but I would have liked the back stories to go a bit more in depth. In the end, it left the idea of the movie and the characters stagnant at best. For saying this was the main premise of the movie - you don't really get a look into how they seem to feel about what happened to them. Book after book has been written on the subject from people who have been abused, and I think if you were going to use that as the focal point of a movie - you would, in the least, spend time going over the mental backlash that such atrocities would inflict on young minds.

The director spent more time trying to play a catch and grab game with the audience - that in my opinion, failed miserably. There were certain characters you absolutely hate, others that you love and respect, and some you feel indifferent about. The fact is, if this movie could be rated as half-way decent, it's because of the acting.

In the end, I think it's safe to say that the movie ended quite abruptly and didn't really seem to accomplish much. The character development was strong, and I feel like each story told a very different tale of life in the "sex lane" - but to elude that this movie in anyway represented victims of abuse is just a tag line to get people to watch it. This was a quaint drama with opposing forces mixed in that didn't really accomplish much of anything.

I went into this expecting good things, but was left slightly dissatisfied and felt the presence of good, upcoming young actors was all that saved it from being horrid.

4/10

Well, this film is not for everyone - I see some other reviews here, mostly negative; maybe not everyone understands it. Good script, good casting, good directing, good camera, good editing, good soundtrack, everything on good professional level. Certainly not a masterpiece, but good craft work, considering low budget.

Maybe this is the film for a limited audience that can evaluate it professionally or for viewers who see life from his shadow side ... at least I give 9/10, because I see a potentially very strong film crew who has done a good job ...

I think that this kind of movies are directed towards a smarter and more sensitive audience that have no illusions about the dark side of life and is not afraid to peek behind it ...

In Los Angeles, Jaron "Jizz" (Josh Janowicz) is a needy teenager that was molested when he was a child and works publishing advertisements for the sex industry. He discounts one hundred dollars in his paychecks to release Tara (Angela Sarafyan), who works in a peep cabin in Paulie's, for the powerful lord of the sex industry Jimmy Sours (Paul Ben-Victor). He teams-up with the whore Balery (Brittany Snow), who is seeking out a partner to steal a rich client, to raise the necessary money to pay Jimmy. Mr. Garrett (Eddie Jemison) is the perverted Health teacher of a high-school; his sluttish students Melody (Candice Accola) and Courtney (Chloe Dumont) like to tease him, crossing their legs while wearing mini-skirts to see him masturbating in his car. Mr. Garrett takes them to join the Internet porn industry and to use pills, and Melody is raped by the sick teacher. The escort Chantel (Shanna Collins) attends kinky clients to satisfy their fantasies and is protected by her pimp Wes (Clayne Crawford). When Wes tries to force the entry in a client's house, the man reacts and the lives of the lead characters are entwined in a tragedy.

"On the Doll" is a dark movie with a confused screenplay that recalls the style of "Crash" about perversions and sex industry that ends in tragedies. The characters in general are poorly developed like, for example, Tara. Is she the girl from Jaron's dream that felt off the roof on the sidewalk? The sympathetic Jaron is under therapy learning to take care of himself and his characters is reasonably developed. Mel and Courtney provoked the situation with their teacher acting like sluts. And Chantel and Wes are the less interesting characters. It is great to see Theresa Russell still very beautiful and elegant since I am a fan of this underrated actress. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Prazeres Proibidos" ("Forbidden Pleasures")

Heard this was the bad joke of the Austin Film Fest. After reviewing this for myself its more then easy to see why. First off the script comes across as being written by a dirty old man enjoying himself more then the audience would ever as he imagines the lives of low life uncared for teenagers. . The 99% untried actors try to handle the unlikely all over the place creepy fantasy but there are problems to the right and left.

They should mention the cheap background sets in the description on the cover of the DVD. One was supposed to be an eatery that was clearly someones house. Most of the rest were pretty terrible. I'm probably going to have to say its the only fun part of the cheap movie to watch. Unless your a deviant who gets off on watching abused children I'd stay away of this. I thought it would be decent quality..i was wrong.

I love this site. I usually pay a lot of attention to the scores before I watch a movie. In this case I am glad I didn't pay attention.

I watch a lot of independent films, but i don't pay attention to who made what who starred in what. I just don't care. I just watch and enjoy. I wasn't good at book reviews when i was a kid, and nothings changed but here goes...

I think the low votes must be from people who found the movie too shocking. Or people who couldn't empathize or want to empathize with the characters. It is not necessarily graphic or vulgar. Its not even that dark. Its just unique. It is just the right mix of real life drama/Hollywood.

All I can say is watch this movie. And if you are better than me at giving reviews then do everyone else a favor and clue them in.