First of all: This is porn. If you do not want to see people having sex, do not watch it.
Then again, it is nothing like regular mainstream porn.
What I like about it: This is porn that I can relate to. You see regular people, not porn actors. In fact, they are not even actors at all. Average students. No dumb porn clichés. You see natural smart modern and open-minded young people, like you can meet at university. One critical review called the actresses "unattractive". Wow. Completely missing the point (and: seriously?). If that reviewer does consume porn I do not want to know what kind.
This film is not good because it has an amazing story. Guess what, it doesn't. You do not get deep stories with problems, like you would in French or Spanish films on the border of pornographic content. Personally, I never liked that kind of combination. Could someone for once just show sex in a positive way, without any problems? Yes, it is possible.
This film's strength is showing regular people and being very sex-positive. Showing modern life at its most open. Nothing more, nothing less. But that is a lot in a world full of very questionable depictions of sex.
This is a view of sexuality I can relate to.
I cannot agree at all with most things labelled porn. The picture of men and women you see mostly disgusts me. It starts with the types of people - types I cannot relate to at all. And also, it's mostly ridiculously acted and stereotypical.
Luckily, you can find alternative porn nowadays which is different, showing natural people having sex. Feature films in that area are still rare though. This is one of the few. I would count "9 Songs" as another one.
It's too bad this film wasn't bigger and did not lead to a wider discussion of porn. German public-broadcasting radio station Deutschlandfunk had an interesting feature about it. Generally, it did not get much attention though. I think that would have been good. There are far too many people out there whose views of sex have been influenced by the kind of questionable mainstream porn you can find everywhere.
It's not a coincidence that the female part of the screenwriter/director/producer duo was doing a PhD in art history, with the topic "art and pornography".
Clearly, the two filmmakers are very critical towards mainstream porn and want to contribute to establishing a more positive kind of porn. If that is interesting to you, give it a try. I wished that there would be a big wave of this new kind of pornography, even feature films. The world needs it, in the name of healthy positive views of sex.
