Though she has departed New Sensations after a successful run of videos there, Adult filmmaker Jacky St. James left behind this well-made follow-up to her hit trilogy about submissive Emma Marx. It takes a different tack that I found rewarding.
In the BTS interview on the DVD, Jacky praises star Penny Pax as contributing to the great success of the videos, while Pax joins the mutual admiration by complimenting Jacky on her solid scripts. I believe the secret sauce here is that Jacky not merely used the sudden widespread public interest in BDSM engendered by the "50 Shades" mainstream novels, but smartly emphasizes the hardcore sex content in her work, rather than dwell on the bondage and fetish elements of the subject matter, which have been overdone in thousands of soft-core specialty videos (see: FM Concepts, Harmony Concepts, Anton Prods. labels) for a couple of decades and only appealing to a specialized audience.
My problem with Jacky's previous work is that it so often devolved into proseltyzing to young women to try and achieve self-fulfillment by becoming a sub, specifically subservient to some Master man (though women doms are not precluded). In "Evolved" the underlying and quite disputable notion of submitting and letting go (to someone else's complete control) to set you free is repeated, but with a significant difference.
Now with the death of her master (played by Richie Calhoun who shows up briefly here in flashback archive footage as well as narrating the show throughout -from beyond the grave!) Emma played by Pax is depressed, but over the course of the film evolves into a new state, able to move on with her life.
That evolution consists of her gradually shifting from the status of a submissive to becoming a dominant, using her extensive training in the former role to help her achieve the latter. It is a positive note, and reflects not only the real-life approach of many Adult Industry sex workers (who are called upon to frequently play both sorts of roles on screen) but a logical extension of the BDSM ethos. Whether it is possible in practice, given the "fore-ordained" aspect of the community's lore or propaganda about one's supposedly intrinsic inclinations toward either extreme remains as debatable as the whole irrational notions behind BDSM in the first place.
In any event, the dramatic quality of "Evolved" is dependent on Jacky's casting of young Violet Starr in the leading role of Mariah, Penny's new housemate when she moves in with her sister Riley Reid. Their residence is the unfamiliar-looking, after renovation, "Immoral Proposal" mansion, porn's favorite shooting location, and no longer sporting its oval-paned doors (now just black wood) but still having that iconic spiral staircase. The staircase along with new white on white decor is the backdrop for the show's initial sex scene, Riley humping her estranged husband Van Wylde, with the cute gambit that she is in the process of divorcing him (he's moved out of the mansion) and enjoys far better "hate-sex" with him now than they ever experienced when happily domestic partners.
The sound recording (and acoustics) in their angry argument pre-sex as well as the duo's acting is top-notch, and a tribute to Jacky not going the all-sex route wherein the set-ups and NonSex content is treated contemptuously as something to get over with.
But there is far less plot and dialog in this 4th volume of the series, conforming with the current trend toward wall-to-wall sex shows (with minimal character set-up footage), as even New Dimensions that was a key force in producing Romantic Couples features at the beginning of this decade has now virtually abandoned features entirely in favor of all-vignettes (all-sex) new releases.
In "Evolved", the voice of Calhoun provides nearly all of the story progression and expression of Emma's attitude, a device often used in porn in place of laborious dialog or acting. It works and adds a fantasy element as he is the omniscient supernatural presence throughout.
Violet is a revelation, making one believe she is really into BDSM, and so anxious for new roommate Emma to show her the ropes, so to speak. Their relationship evolves and leads to a satisfying conclusion to the story.
Jacky includes the various paraphernalia of the genre in the ritualistic BDSM scenes, ranging from pinwheel and riding crop to handcuffs & blindfold, leading to Penny delivering at the climax of the show her own specialty of butt-plug, anal sex and d.p. action. The male characters, including a very smooth Master performance by aptly-monikered Jay Smooth, are all minor, even brother-in-law Wylde, but not their cocks, as St. James downplays almost entirely the lesbian sex content and goes with good old intercourse in all four mandatory sex scenes. To satisfy the Streaming public, these XXX scenes are each overlong, detracting from the show's dramatic intensity but obviously of commercial importance.
