Review: Elektra Luxx

Carla Gugino plays the titular Elektra Luxx, a retired porn superstar making a living teaching an adult sex-ed class ("How to act like a porn star in bed"). She's just found out she's pregnant and is having a really bad week. She's suffering an existential crisis, worried about how she can be a good mother and still explain to her child what she used to do for a living. Just as she's dealing with this, people begin appearing in her life, making her question who she is and who she wants to be.

The movie, written and directed by Sebastian Gutierrez, looks like it would have been more suited to a playhouse stage than the silver screen. This, despite an impressive number of stars: Gugino, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Kathleen Quinlan (Event Horizon, Apollo 13), Marley Shelton, Malin Ackerman, Timothy Olyphant, Justin Kirk and Julianne Moore. The dialogue, full of random non-sequiturs, meanders through each scene. A chance encounter with a former co-star, Holly Rocket (Friday Night Lights' Adrianne Palicki) spawns a tedious and completely disconnected subplot that follows Holly and her best friend on a vacation, culminating in the two falling in love.  

Things become a little more clear upon learning Elektra Luxx is actually a follow-up to Gutierrez's 2009 release Women in Trouble. Elektra Luxx is a sequel to that virtually unseen flick with most of the same actors. Taken alone, it is a mess, with characters that appear out of nowhere even in the last 10 minutes of the film, as clunky dialogue explains their connection to Elektra. A friend is actually the mother of a spoiled trust-fund brat neighbor, for instance. The entire lesbian love-affair vacation should have been dropped, as it completely breaks the narrative of Elektra's story, involves characters who have no introduction (unless you've seen the first film), and frankly put me to sleep both times I watched the movie.

Aside from these issues, there is a lot of humor packed into Elektra Luxx. The first 20 minutes and the last 20 minutes were a delight. Joseph Gordon Levitt is Elektra's biggest fan, Bert Rodriguez, who runs a video blog out of his mother's attic. His trouble dealing with a nagging mother and a sister who wants to break into online porn serves as narration to Elektra's life and a lighthearted break from her dark situation. Timothy Olyphant plays detective Dellwood Butterworth, hired to follow Elektra and recover songs about her stolen from her dead lover's band. Julianne Moore appears as the Virgin Mary, comforting Elektra and bringing her good news in a touching scene.

Each of these characters just pops into Elektra's life, and she never develops a strong relationship with any of them. She isn't with the same acquaintance for more than two or perhaps three scenes in the entire movie, and this may have been Gutierrez's intent; she is entirely alone with no support system.  Fortunately for her, all these people touched by her in one way or another come together just when she needs them.

Elektra Luxx opens this weekend at the Regal Arbor Cinema at Great Hills. Stay through the credits for a special "xXx"-rated trailer for Elektra Luxx's farewell film.