A 19-year-old woman arrives at LAX from Sweden, where the passport officer asks her the reason for her visit: “Business or pleasure?”

“Pleasure,” she says, not quite truthfully.

In a twist on a familiar show business story, she’s determined to hit it big in porn. For her film Pleasure, Swedish writer-director Ninja Thyberg spent several years researching the American adult industry, which uses a cast largely drawn from the business. That is, except for its 22-year-old star, Sofia Kappel. She plays Linnéa, though for most of the film she goes by her chosen nom de porn, Bella Cherry.

Thyberg has said her intent was to try to show sex work as potentially positive for women (agency, money) but also show the patriarchal order of the adult entertainment industry. Her approach is, on a certain level, consciously even-handed. It’s shot in a documentary fly-on-the-wall fashion, though layered with a score that toggles between European electronic opera and abrasive American rap.

The director successfully evokes a milieu that is clinically efficient and business friendly. Lighting is good. There are consent forms, age, and disease checks. The rules of engagement are spelled out.

The interior sets could be a low-budget commercial or industrial film shoot, except that people are naked and having staged sex. Shot in non-erotic, semi-explicit style with full nudity, erect penises but no actual sex act, Pleasure brings to mind filmmaker John Waters’ objection to porn, that it reminded him too much of watching open-heart surgery.

Once you get past the clinical mis-en-scène and the voyeuristic surprise, the story is the usual A Star Is Born showbiz rollercoaster of big dreams, success, and disillusionment.

Bella’s trajectory is anchored in four sex scenes, starting with an innocuous (if gross) oral sex scene where she passes the audition. Because Bella wants bigger paydays and more attention, she learns her craft: How to shave and cover tattoos, boost her social media numbers and practice with the help of a female roommate and a banana.

Next, she seeks out directors doing more high-profile, lucrative, and rougher sex scenes. A second sex scene, a simulated gang bang, turns alarmingly ugly. Another, a bondage scene with a woman director, is almost tender. The fourth is a girl-on-girl scene where Bella interacts with Ava (Evelyn Claire), a sultry star she idolizes, and we watch how she has internalized the darker lessons of her work.

Thyberg’s take on the porn industry is conventionally negative. The scenes repeatedly depict female submission, humiliation, and the spectre of violence, pushing the limits of consent. Even when the crew are supportive and friendly, they’re in the business of perpetuating stark fantasies of male aggression and female submission.

At the same time, the film is too contemporary to be a simple “trapped in sin” melodrama. The tone shifts, often abruptly from scene to scene, from disturbing to light. Bella, as she says herself, really likes sex and she’s making her own choices, bonding with her co-stars, and loving being on camera.

That’s an intriguing tension though a major weakness here is that Bella doesn’t really offer as a character study. Actor Sofia Kappel, though game for the physical demands of the role, feels more of a narrow case study of an ambitious loner than a fully formed personality. On a phone call home to her mother, we learn only that the mother is supportive, offering generic advice on the difficulties of bad bosses, without knowing a thing about her daughter.

The warmer pleasures and moments of humour of the film come from the other actors, drawn from the adult film industry, who surround the somewhat stilted main character. They include Black porn star Chris Cock as himself, who walks Bella through her first double-penetration interracial scene like Burgess Meredith coaching Rocky in his debut title match.

As Bella’s roommates Joy and Ashley (adult stars Revika Reustle (aka Zelda Morrison) and Dana DeArmond) are relaxed and funny onscreen, reminding us that porn is, after all, a form of acting where you do all your own stunt work.

Pleasure. Directed and written by Ninja Thyberg. Starring Sofia Kappel, Revika Anne Reustle, Evelyn Claire, Chris Cock, Dana DeArmond and Kendra Spade. Screening at Toronto’s TIFF Bell Lightbox May 20.

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