On the Doll

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")

This film is dark, sick and scary, I assume for the most part it does accurately describe parts of the sex industry and the damaged people who choose and yes I say choose to live in it. I find it very telling that most people in the industry either are screwed up going in or become screwed up while they are a part of it. What is it that attracts damaged people and also what is it that turns descent people into the scum of this earth. OK, back to the film, it seems to represent this lifestyle well, but still not the into the depth of say a Boogie Nights. The actors are of much lower quality and at times you feel that things are on screen just to shock you and not to add anything to the characters or storyline. Then there is what I call the Crash effect, let me explain, since the film Crash came out (one of the best films of all-time if you ask me) many films have tried to imitate the conversation storyline style and none have done it well or anything close to as well as Crash did. This film is no exception of this, it tries to hard to connect it's characters to the point where it just loses any kind of realism factor. Now I don't mind being surprised by a films end or how it connects it's characters when it's good and it works, this is not that. Overall an OK film that does take on some controversial issues without being overly graphic, but the actors and director tried to hard to make it more poignant then it was.

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.

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 ...

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.