Marriage 2.0 (2015)

Wander the Internet or your neighborhood and it's clear: throughout our culture, much of what was true 20 years ago is not necessarily the case now. Our relationships, romantic and ... See full summary »

Director:

Paul Deeb

Writer:

Magnus Sullivan

Stars:

India Summer, Ryan Driller, Dylan Ryan

1 win.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
India Summer	...	India
Ryan Driller	...	Eric
Dylan Ryan	...	Kara
Mickey Mod	...	Edward
Sadie Lune	...	Meghan
Nina Hartley	...	India's Mom
Andre Shakti	...	Athena
Devi	...	Jenny
Christian Wilde	...	Kara's Dom
Carol Queen	...	Mrs. Peters (as Dr. Carol Queen)
Cacilda Jetha	...	Herself
Christopher Ryan	...	Himself (as Chris Ryan)
Emily Morse	...	Herself
Marcia Baczynski	...	Herself
Reid Mihalko	...	Himself

Storyline

Wander the Internet or your neighborhood and it's clear: throughout our culture, much of what was true 20 years ago is not necessarily the case now. Our relationships, romantic and otherwise, are in many ways beginning to reflect these new realities. Set against the vivid, natural beauty of Northern California and San Francisco, Marriage 2.0 follows a couple (India Summer and Ryan Driller) on their search for personal freedom, emotional and sexual bliss within the context of an honest and committed modern relationship. What makes Marriage 2.0 a different kind of relationship movie is its frankness; for all the pleasures of open relationships, jealousy and vulnerability do not magically disappear. This love letter to San Francisco - the cultural epicenter of the alternative relationship movement - suggests that the ideas of growth, novelty, and sexual adventure can exist within a millennial marriage. Marriage 2.0 tells a story both timely and universal. In the company of its diverse ...

---

Plot Keywords:

marriage | open relationship | jealousy | sex | fingering | 

---

Genres:

Adult | Drama | Romance

---

Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated NC-17 for explicit sexual content and graphic nudity throughout

Details

Official Sites:

Official Facebook Official site

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

26 February 2015 (USA)

Filming Locations:

Victoria Theatre, 2961 16th Street, San Francisco, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Lionreach Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

130 min 123 min (hardcore version) (DVD) (hardcore)

Color:

Color Black and White

Did You Know?

Connections

Features Mistress (2014)

User Reviews

Ambitious study of relationships (XXX included) filled with b.s.

I was prepared to be bowled over by a rare incursion into Adult Entertainment from (sort of) the mainstream in "Marriage 2.0" but director Paul Deeb and perhaps the main instigator writer-producer Magnus Sullivan have taken a big step backwards. Result is a heavy-handed, difficult-to-watch pretentious exercise, that is neither erotic nor instructive.

I am a big fan, often against the tide of popularity, of those many '60s and '70s films dealing with counter-culture and alternative life-style -having seen many at the time and catching up with the more obscure titles resurrected by Something Weird and other adventurous video labels. "Marriage 2.0" pretends to be about recent trends in "open relationships", referring to and giving tons of air time to author Chris Ryan on the subject, but all that New Age stuff was covered far better 40 and 50 years ago on screen.

Overwritten screenplay, much of which is buried under annoying droning music from the director, keeps pontificating thru Chris on the outdated notion of traditional marriage, condemning it in our culture with various accusations comparing it to slavery, with the man as dominant. The script, however sets up a false dialectic between this position and heroine India Summer's quest and questioning to make her long-term relationship with Ryan Driller work, despite the deadly aspects of Driller's over-stress on the "open" part. He's into the trendy polyamorous bag, hanging out sexually with 28-year-old free spirit Dylan Ryan who lives on a boat in a fashionable marina in this Frisco & environs set sex drama.

Apart from the over-abundance of Ryans on board, the film is fatally confused in terms of content, including numerous XXX sex scenes, replete with those magically appearing and disappearing condoms supported by p.c. filmmakers, but keeping explicit images on screen so brief as to constitute more tease than porn content. Clearly Magnus & Deeb don't want to be accused of cranking out another porn video, yet that is what this Adam & Eve Pictures release is, just a poor one.

Making matters worse Deeb adopts an editing style I once was intrigued with (back in 1973) when created by Lindsay Anderson for his brilliant "O Lucky Man!". Suffering from ADD, the editing usually does not linger on a shot for long, instead fading or cutting to black frames to separate shots, the way Lindsay did 43 years ago as one of his many Brechtian distanciation devices. It was experimental back then, just annoying now, and serves to cancel out any incipient eroticism in a scene.

A visit by the principals to Frisco's Victoria Theatre has Deeb's short BDSM movie "Mistress" playing, and I see that his background is in that field. To that end he has cast in major roles Dylan Ryan and Sadie Lune, leading actresses in BDSM lesbian cinema, notably the two Madison Young features riffing on "50 Shades", released by Filly Films. An endless S&M scene in which dom Christian Wilde torments Dylan (and she loves it!) moves the film right smack into that genre and off-target from its proclaimed theme.

This casting ploy led me down the wrong path, as the accidental but frequent interaction between fellow joggers India and Dylan who are actually adversaries regarding "ownership" (my dumb term) of Driller was such a glaring plot device I kept expecting the two women to hook up as lesbian lovers and drop the Driller like a hot potato. That would have been my fade-out happy ending, but no such luck.

Instead India goes through a series of flip-flops, under the influence of both Chris who she is profiling along with his lady Cacilda Jetha in a documentary film she's sort of directing about alternative life-styles, as well as Lune who is a model of the new openness, living with light-skinned Black stud Mickey Mod, but hosting vast orgies (one takes up a lot of the feature's running time, interminably halting the plot development during the middle reels) and also presented in a black & white sensual fantasy sequence as part of a 4-person mixed combo sex relationship. It was interesting to see Lune stretch, as she is heterosexual/bi-sexual and not into S&M in this feature, after being dominatrix of the year in Young's exaggerated and exhausting BDSM lesbian films.

Less interesting is Lune's (and others') ridiculous water buffalo shrieks of ecstasy when having orgasms, Lune's coming from simple masturbation. These deafening interruptions exceed even those of Teri Weigel, notorious porn queen of annoying vocal excess. Deeb's use of this fake stuff, along with some crappy porn-speak, is way out of date and casts doubt on the seriousness of the entire enterprise.

Wimpy ending is punctuated by terrible dialog, as Driller reconciles with India and looks to an "open" future with such priceless drivel as: "I don't know where we're going, but we're going somewhere interesting and we're going there together". I can tolerate, even revel in that sort of nonsense watching a 1970 movie, but in 2015/2016 it's barf time.