performers: jenna foxx, aaliyah love
site: true lesbian ◅ adult time (gamma)
production credits: bree mills (dir., scr.), j. wolfe (d.p.), jean a. dubois (ed.)
release date: jan 24, 2022 | trailer
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| l: aaliyah love, r: jenna foxx |
i was mildly critical of the true lesbian series back in early 2020, in part because of an overall exhaustion with gamma's output, but its return in late 2021 and over the course of 2022 has been one of the best things on adult time, which has cut back significantly on the legacy girlsway brand to scatter girl/girl more continuously throughout its many many new sub-brands, to extremely varied effect. but among the whackadoo experimentation, the steady undercurrent of sincere emotion from true lesbian has been a nice reminder of what bree mills, at her best, is capable of.
the opening five minutes of this featurette-length scene, in which jenna foxx looks at herself in the mirror and gets dressed, were more cinematic than nine-tenths of porn production, using editing, mis-en-scène, and intelligent sound design to communicate story in ways that porn almost never attempts. once old pro aaliyah love, as the sex worker jenna has hired in order to figure out if she really is a lesbian, enters, the storytelling gets a little more humdrum — i hate that goddamn porn house so much, but at least it's mostly judiciously draped in chiaroscuro this time — but jenna is at the top of her game as a shy, barely-articulate church girl destroying her too-young marriage by discovering what pleasure is.
it's been jenna foxx's year in a bunch of ways, including a new career in runway modeling in new york, paris and milan, but her performance here, practically shrinking into her bushy wig, is the best i've ever seen from her and one of the best performances i've seen in porn, period. (she was not nominated for any avn or xbiz awards, in part because the acting categories are dominated by boy/girl.) mills' camera crew, particularly director of photography j. wolfe, did superb work: even the sex was elegantly filmed and smartly cut, something that remains all too rare even in high-end productions. there were shots during the facesitting sequence i don't think i've ever seen before, which is not something i get to say very often.
although full of tenderness, the emotional temperature of the scene rarely moves above sweet, and the final shot — aaliyah returns the money jenna had paid her up front, for the pleasure of helping her find herself — is groanworthy in its predictability. you'd think that a crew of sex industry workers would know the value of holding on to your fee, not to mention the hoariness of the heart-of-gold stereotype. but i guess nobody gets into sex work because they hate sentiment or cliché.
performances: 29
cinematography: 23
editing: 19
script: 12
sjw points: 7
total score: