Pleasure
Year: 2021
Director: Ninja Thyburg
Starring: Sofia Kappel
Runtime: 105 mins
BBFC: 18
Published: 30/09/22
Director: Ninja Thyburg
Starring: Sofia Kappel
Runtime: 105 mins
BBFC: 18
Published: 30/09/22
Pornography is a funny thing. Nobody likes to talk about it yet clearly a lot of people watch it. Everybody acts like they’ve never seen porn before, but everyone knows that at some point or another everybody’s probably watched some porn. With the rise of OnlyFans during the COVID-19 pandemic, and sex work slowly becoming more legitimised and accepted particularly among younger demographics, it has started to reignite the age-old discussions about whether the traditional porn industry does enough for its workers. So, the release of Pleasure, the debut feature from Swedish director Ninja Thyberg, seemed appropriately timed in 2021. Did it take my breath away, or did it leave me feeling used and ashamed?
Nineteen-year-old Bella Cherry (Sofia Kappel) has moved from her small hometown in Sweden to Los Angeles in the hopes of making it big in the adult entertainment industry. However, as Bella faces stiff competition from fellow hopefuls and begins to realise just how much she must be prepared to sacrifice to make it big, Bella must suck it up and swallow her pride (see what I did there) to get noticed in the often seedy and glamourless industry she adores.
Nineteen-year-old Bella Cherry (Sofia Kappel) has moved from her small hometown in Sweden to Los Angeles in the hopes of making it big in the adult entertainment industry. However, as Bella faces stiff competition from fellow hopefuls and begins to realise just how much she must be prepared to sacrifice to make it big, Bella must suck it up and swallow her pride (see what I did there) to get noticed in the often seedy and glamourless industry she adores.
A typical rags to riches story, Pleasure seeks to shed light on the porn industry and its manipulative treatment of its female stars. There’s a common saying regarding patriarchal society where the only job a woman gets paid more than a man to do is pornography. This isn’t exactly untrue, as its well-publicised that women in the industry do earn significantly more than their male co-stars…but at what cost?
Pleasure sees Bella (real name Linnea) starting off at a small talent agency where she hopes to make her first big break, but realising along the way that the smaller agencies are unlikely to have the same kinds of safeguarding measures that the bigger ones do. But to get a top agent Bella will need to prove herself as a girl who’s down for anything and won’t fuss.
Pleasure is inherently erotic, yet it’s simultaneously incredibly uncomfortable. As a film geek I am often able to separate the reality from films and TV shows I watch as I analyse camera angles, editing choices, the performances, and generally as much of the whole product I can. But with porn that’s something I rarely think about, so to have a film go ‘behind the scenes’ as such and present a dramatization of what life is like on a porn set, and how models get work was really interesting to me. The porn shoot in the 2003 rom-com Love Actually is really the most I’ve ever thought about what the set of a porn shoot looks like, and Pleasure isn’t a million miles away from that but it is significantly darker and more explicit.
Pleasure sees Bella (real name Linnea) starting off at a small talent agency where she hopes to make her first big break, but realising along the way that the smaller agencies are unlikely to have the same kinds of safeguarding measures that the bigger ones do. But to get a top agent Bella will need to prove herself as a girl who’s down for anything and won’t fuss.
Pleasure is inherently erotic, yet it’s simultaneously incredibly uncomfortable. As a film geek I am often able to separate the reality from films and TV shows I watch as I analyse camera angles, editing choices, the performances, and generally as much of the whole product I can. But with porn that’s something I rarely think about, so to have a film go ‘behind the scenes’ as such and present a dramatization of what life is like on a porn set, and how models get work was really interesting to me. The porn shoot in the 2003 rom-com Love Actually is really the most I’ve ever thought about what the set of a porn shoot looks like, and Pleasure isn’t a million miles away from that but it is significantly darker and more explicit.
If you’re sensitive to storylines of sexual abuse then Pleasure is absolutely not for you. There are a number of moments in it that are hard to watch, most notably a scene where Bella tries out ‘rape’ porn for the first time. It’s worth mentioning here how great of a performer Kappel is in this film. This would not have been an easy role to take, especially considering this was her first role in a feature film, but she manages to strike the perfect balance between a character who is strong, determined, and powerful, yet also extremely vulnerable and completely out of her depth. Bella’s growth over the course of the film is fantastic to witness, and Kappel is truly captivating to watch.
If you’re coming for explicit sex scenes then Pleasure does have its fair share of saucy material, most of it framed as though it were the actual porn film the characters are shooting, be prepared to witness facials, pegging, and double anal just to name a few. It’s not as explicit as actual porn though, often obscuring genitals during the act. In comparison to Nymphomaniac for example, the sex scenes are considerably more modest here, but they are much more erotically charged.
I think I was expecting Pleasure to be more glamorous than it was, which I suppose speaks volumes about the reality of the porn industry. But it was entertaining and eye opening, and it’ll definitely make me think twice about how the cast (particularly the female stars) are treated during traditional porn shoots. Is the future of porn in the hands of amateur creators like those on OnlyFans, or will there always be a space for more traditional studios with bigger budget productions? Only time will tell, but in the meantime I recommend Pleasure, but maybe not as something to get you going.
If you’re coming for explicit sex scenes then Pleasure does have its fair share of saucy material, most of it framed as though it were the actual porn film the characters are shooting, be prepared to witness facials, pegging, and double anal just to name a few. It’s not as explicit as actual porn though, often obscuring genitals during the act. In comparison to Nymphomaniac for example, the sex scenes are considerably more modest here, but they are much more erotically charged.
I think I was expecting Pleasure to be more glamorous than it was, which I suppose speaks volumes about the reality of the porn industry. But it was entertaining and eye opening, and it’ll definitely make me think twice about how the cast (particularly the female stars) are treated during traditional porn shoots. Is the future of porn in the hands of amateur creators like those on OnlyFans, or will there always be a space for more traditional studios with bigger budget productions? Only time will tell, but in the meantime I recommend Pleasure, but maybe not as something to get you going.