Finding Bliss (2009/2010)
Jody (Leelee Sobieski) with Jeff (Matt Davis) in FINDING BLISS, a film by Julie Davis.
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Opened: 06/04/2010 Limited
| Limited | 06/04/2010 | |
| Village East | 06/04/2010 - 06/10/2010 | 7 days |
| Sunset 5/LA | 06/11/2010 - 06/24/2010 | 14 days |
| DVD | 08/03/2010 |
Trailer: Click for trailer
Genre: Romantic Comedy
Rated: R for strong sexual content including graphic dialogue and nudity, and for language
Short Synopsis
Aspiring filmmaker Jody Balaban moves to Hollywood with the dream of directing movies, only to end up editing adult films at Grind Productions, where she unexpectedly finds love, friendship, and her true self.
A classic struggle between good girls and bad girls, art and commerce, idealism and selling out, Finding Bliss is a hilarious and heart-warming tale of self-discovery.
Finding Bliss marks the third feature written and directed by Julie Davis. Her last film "Amy’s Orgasm" was called "candid, funny, and deeply authentic" by The Daily Variety and Kenneth Turan of the LA Times called her first film, "I Love You, Don’t Touch Me!", "the debut of a fresh new voice, one that’s honest, sexy, and consistently funny."
Long Synopsis
Finding Bliss is a cutting edge romantic comedy that explores the adult film industry through the eyes of an idealistic 25 year-old award-winning film school grad, Jody Balaban (LEELEE SOBIESKI), new to Los Angeles.
After a long humbling year temping as a traffic cop on a studio lot, Jody is faced with the hard decision of taking the only well-paying industry job she has yet been offered -- editing porn at Grind Productions, a profitable X-rated company run by former porn star and shrewd business-woman Irene Fox (KRISTEN JOHNSTON). Irene explains that Grind is embarking on their first "real" movie, which they plan to release in art-house theaters across the country. The consummate saleswoman, she attempts to seduce the desperate Jody to edit the film by challenging her to bring a smart female point of view to the sexual content in the movie, which is the crucial element needed for the film to cross-over into the mainstream.
At first horrified by the prospect of exposing herself to the cockroaches of the film industry, not to mention the effect it would have on her strict Jewish parents, Jody has a remarkable change of heart when she realizes that Grind has all the facilities she needs to make her own low budget movie -- on the sly of course. Jody rationalizes taking the job on the grounds that "the means justify the ends" -- by editing porn during the day, she'll be able to make meaningful art at night.
At first, Jody's plan seems to be working out -- she prepares to shoot her film after hours and her parents happily think she has a respectable job - but things get complicated when Jody meets Jeff Drake (MATT DAVIS), the charming Herr Director of porn. Jeff, also an award-winning filmmaker, once had his own dreams of making 'real' films, but now is a hard-worn cynic who masks his disappointment behind a façade of irony. In Jody, he sees the idealism he once had, while Jody starts to face her own sexual hang-ups as she begins to get aroused by the porn she so harshly judges.
When Jody starts making her own low budget romantic comedy at night, she hires Laura (DENISE RICHARDS), a sweet ingenue who questions Jody's preconceptions about love and sex as and gradually inspires Jody to embrace her growing attraction towards Jeff, not to mention her unexpected affection for the lowlifes of porn, including the dimwitted but lovable porn star Richard "Dick" Harder (JAMIE KENNEDY).
