IÕve often wondered what an adult
film actress does when her time is up. Elektra Luxx (Carla Gugino) in Sebastian GutierrezÕs film of the same name,
hovering around the unmentionable fifth decade, is teaching a class titled ÒHow To Act Like a Porn Star in BedÓ at a
community center. Her class, attended by a handful of desperate housewives, anxious young women and an undercover
mystery novelist (Kathleen Quinlan), looks and sounds more like a therapy group than a course in human sexology.
If she really is a legend and a superstar, as internet video channel host Bert (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) declares, why is she
doing this? Well, you see, she is pregnant. And the father, her rock musician boyfriend, having hit his head in a
commercial airliner bathroom at 30,000 feet, is dead in the bargain.
The film follows loosely connected sets of
characters over the course of a weekend. Bert, bereft over ElektraÕs retirement, tries to keep his aspiring-pinup
sister off camera. Holly Rocket, ElektraÕs dumb-blonde colleague, is about to leave for a weekend in Mexico with
her best friend Bambi, with whom she is secretly in love.
ElektraÕs post-porn path seems relatively well-chosen ÐÐ
if uncomfortably close to bare subsistence-level ÐÐ until guilt-ridden flight attendant
Cora (Marley Shelton) begs her to seduce her fiancŽ.
Infinitely watchable Adrianne Palicki as Holly
pouts with committed sincerity. When she squashes the amorous interests of two vacationing entrepreneurs with a tale
of BambiÕs grandmotherÕs homicidal defense of her family honor, her eyes glint with malicious glee. As HollyÕs unwitting
crush, Emanuelle Chiriqui is so natural as to appear not acting at all. Gugino lives in ElektraÕs skin, as well as her blond
wig ÐÐ even her mascara stays on while she takes a bath, where she is visited by the Virgin Mary (Julianne Moore, in an
uncredited cameo). Both Gugino and Chiriqui pull off dual roles, Gugino as her incarcerated twin sister, and Chiriqui as
her proud and deadly grandmother.
Had I been in GutierrezÕs boots, I would have cut the coffee-shop conversation with the
private detective (Timothy Olyphant) whom Elektra mistakenly seduces (visually flat and lacking conversational sparkle)
and some of BertÕs on-camera speeches (ÒlivenedÓ by off-camera interruptions by his mother). But these scenes,
occurring in the first half of the film, are easy enough to forget ÐÐ especially if you have been seduced by the retro-sexy
opening credits, or by the subject matter itself. The porn star with the heart of gold finds a pot of it at the foot of the
rainbow (IÕm not telling you how). And her labor commences, announcing the arrival of a new life.
