Give Up the Search
Directed by Julie Davis
Running time: 96 min.
The story of prissy film school graduate Jody Balaban (Leelee
Sobieski) who takes a job editing adult films in order to secretly film her own
script on the studio’s soundstages at night, Finding Bliss is shockingly illogical. This is the kind of film
where Leelee Sobieski plays a sexually frightened young woman whose script
(titled “On the Virge,” as if that were any better than the titles of porn
films) is about a sexually frightened young woman forcing her boyfriend to wait
for sex. To further distance itself from the real world, the actress cast as
the character is played by that world-famous paragon of virtue (and
youthfulness)… Denise Richards?
Yes, Richards is there, wearing a gold cross and feigning
innocence. By the time her true role is revealed, audiences will have long
realized the twist, and no one will care.
In addition to Richards and Sobieski (who is coiffed in an
unflattering hairstyle that looks as if someone scalped Shirley Temple),
Kristen Johnston pops up for a few (too few) scenes as the head of Grind
Studios, blithely lending some genuine comedy to the proceedings on the way to
cash her check. Matthew Davis, as a renowned porn director, lends some softcore
sleaze, while Jamie Kennedy appears as adult film star Richard Harder and bares
all in the name of very little.
Writer-director Julie Davis
has no idea what she wants to say (the upshot of the film seems to be that
women should embrace their sexuality for the happiness of men, up to and
including dressing in latex) and spends a ridiculous amount of time not saying
it. Cheap and hideous to look at, the movie feels increasingly like a lower
budget Skinemax offering, but more poorly plotted. Sobieski can barely hold her
head above water throughout, struggling to overcome the limitations of the
script and her own narrow talent, before giving in completely and letting the
movie wash over her. Audiences will experience the same reaction. Why fight
something so willfully stupid?