REVIEW: Porn Stars Are People, Too, in Delicious Elektra Luxx

At one point in Sebastian Gutierrez's exceptionally sweet-natured Elektra Luxx, an entertainment set in the world of adult entertainment, a young porn-site impresario states plainly, "Porn stars are people too." That sounds like a throwaway truism, until you consider that in the movies, as in real life, porn actors are more often treated as objects of scorn or pity, people who have made careless choices because they were shallow, victimized or just didn't know any better. In those terms, porn stars aren't people; they're more like receptacles for our own guilt and shame.

There's none of that cluck-clucking in the buoyant, stealthily intelligent Elektra Luxx, in which Carla Gugino plays the titular -- and how! -- adult-movie actress, a professional who, upon learning she's pregnant, has decided to retire. She makes that decision before the movie even starts: Elektra Luxx opens with a heartfelt intro from one of Elektra's biggest fans, that aforementioned porntrepreneur, a young go-getter named Bert Rodriguez (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), whose live, online rhapsodizing about his crush is repeatedly interrupted by his mother's entreaties to take out the garbage. Between household chores, though, Bert is able to honor his favorite actress on the eve of her retirement by outlining her greatest achievements, among them "Two Nymphomaniac Twin Sisters" and the inevitable follow-up "Two Nymphomaniac Twin Sisters 2."

It turns out Elektra really does have a twin sister (played also, natch, by Gugino), who's serving hard time, having never been able to pull her life together the way Elektra has. But Elektra now faces her own challenges: To kick off her new adventure, she's begun teaching classes at the local community center, schooling women in the art of porn-star-style lovemaking. (The always-delightful Lucy Punch plays one of her eager pupils.) And there's some turmoil afoot: It turns out that the absentee father of Elektra's baby has left behind some secrets, discovered by a wiggy but conscientious flight attendant (played by the loopy, loose-limbed Marley Shelton). She shares these secrets with Elektra but also asks a favor, one that results in Elektra's seduction of a hardly reticent private dick (Timothy Olyphant).

There's a lot going on in Elektra Luxx, which is a sequel to Gutierrez's 2009 Women in Trouble. (Gutierrez also wrote the 2003 Halle Berry thriller Gothika, and was one of the writers of Snakes on a Plane; he is also, incidentally, Gugino's boyfriend.) The numerous drifty tangents and subplots include the adventures of one of Elektra's compatriots, a ditzy actress named Holly Rider (played, with marvelous flakiness by Adrianne Palicki), who's become stricken with love for another colleague (Emmanuelle Chriqui) and is wondering how to make her move. When Holly serendipitously runs into Elektra and learns of her impending bundle of joy, she's momentarily taken aback: In what has to be one of the great dada movie non-sequiturs of the year, she blurts out, "Is it yours?"

That's just one example of Gutierrez's freewheeling approach to this material, and of the way he trusts in his actors' timing (clearly, he has reason to). Elektra Luxx is a cartoon -- it's shot in vivid candy colors by Cale Finot -- yet it's not wholly cartoonish. Gutierrez isn't out to make any serious pronouncements about the porn industry. But he's not looking down on his subject, either. The picture is rambunctiously affectionate; Guiterrez may go for the broad joke, but never the cheap one. (He must have had a lot of fun coming up with some of the picture's fake porn titles, a la Even Reverse Cowgirls Get the Blues.) Let's also note that Guiterrez -- aside from his obvious great taste in girlfriends -- is a gentleman of discernment: His movie features music by Robyn Hitchcock and an uncredited cameo by Julianne Moore -- as the Virgin Mary, no less, which may be the greatest stroke of religious casting since Willem Dafoe gave new meaning to the phrase "How's it hangin'?" in The Last Temptation of Christ.

Gugino is an intelligent and supremely likable actress -- I still mourn the cancellation of her Elmore Leonard-inspired television series "Karen Cisco" -- and she seems to be having great fun here. Elektra's daywear consists of fuchscia latex pants, a cornsilk-straight blond wig and three (or more) coats of polyurethane lip gloss, but Gugino, miraculously, never looks garish in Elektra's getups. Gugino has an inherent no-nonsense quality that could lend dignity to any neon-colored uniform; her Elektra has legs and brains, in addition to several other notable attributes. But most important of all, as confident as Elektra is, she still has her moments of insecurity; she sometimes wonders if she's a good person. As Gugino plays her, Elektra Luxx is a bombshell with a person inside. In the personality department, she's both double-D and triple-X.