Joy

This movie is supposedly based on an erotic autobiography by one "Joy Laury". Obviously, it is another knock-off (a French-Canadian one this time) of the 1974 European film "Emmanuelle". Although they were never exactly good, I kind of like the 1970's "Emmanuelle"-type films, but this, uh, genre, had grown really tired by 1983, and this film really adds nothing new. It's not as well-made as the early Sylvia Kristel "Emmanuelle" films. It's not as erotic as some of the earlier "Emmanuelle" knock-offs like the German film "Vanessa". And it's not nearly as demented and weird as some of the "Emmanuelle", um, re-imaginings like the notorious Joe D'Amato-Laura Gemser "Black Emanuelle" series (which featured cannibals, snuff films, etc.). Canuck actress Claudia Udy plays a model who's dating a rock musician, but then falls madly in love with an older man. She finds some success after a modeling shoot and goes to America to appear in a movie (which looks like it's even worse than this one). Despite a lot of temptation, she stays more or less faithful to her new love, but then she discovers he WANTS her to have sex with five guys at a time while he watches.

Okay, Udy has a very nice body, but I've seen her in other stuff and she just can't act. It also doesn't help that she and everyone else are very badly dubbed into English. Segio Begonzelli is an interesting director (notice I didn't say "good"), but this is by far his least interesting film. It's too stylized and very pretentious (there's one scene where "Joy" discards her panties, spreads her legs, and displays herself as part of some half-assed art exhibit, which we're supposed to believe is high art). I sometimes find the European pretentiousness and the ridiculous dialogue amusing in these films, but here it's mostly just annoying. I do (kind of) like these kind of films, but this one just didn't do it for me.