Elektra Luxx

Did Sebastian Gutierrez really gain enough goodwill in Hollywood from his script work on junk like Gothika and Snakes on a Plane to nab this many gifted actors to stuff the seams of his rudderless look at the many shapes of love? Not likely. More likely it was girlfriend and star Carla Gugino's pull that attracted the additional talent to Gutierrez's sequel to Women In Trouble. Joseph Gordon-Levitt revises his post-credits role from that film as Bert Rodriguez, a blogger obsessed with justifying his love of pornography by explaining it as an art form. His part is beefed up, but is as shoehorned into the narrative as the majority of the side characters, who're either filling time or fulfilling character obligations started in Women in Trouble. The main story follows pregnant porn star Elektra Luxx (Carla Gugino, Sin City, The Watchmen) as she leaves the world of adult film behind to teach a sexology class to housewives looking to spice up their relationships. Lucy Punch (Hot Fuzz, Bad Teacher) is given minimal screen time as one of Elektra's students – one of a few characters whose inclusion is pointless without one of three deleted scenes that comprise the film's special features, but cutting out Eric Stoltz's cameo was probably for the best. Fracturing the narrative, Gutierrez ping-pongs between Elektra "finding herself" through a series of encounters stemming from, and echoing, previous events – Cora (Marley Shelton, Death Proof) offers stolen lyrics from Elektra's deceased rock star baby-daddy as appeasement for her guilt over her vagina's complicity in his death; Elektra is trapped in an elevator again, only this time with a nude Vincent Kartheiser (Mad Men) – Burt Rodriguez's inability to interact with actual women and the burgeoning romantic love between hetero porn star/call girls Holly Rocket (Adrianne Palicki, Friday Night Lights) and Bambi Lindberg (Emmanuelle Chriqui, Entourage). Some underdeveloped religious undertones involving an uncredited Julianne Moore as a hallucination of the Virgin Mary and barely-there, plot-servicing inclusions of Justin Kirk (Weeds) and Timothy Olyphant (Justified) further negate any sense that Elektra Luxx is more than a series of vignettes showcasing the acting chops of Gugino (she plays her own butch, lisping, incarcerated twin sister) and the comedic gifts of Palicki as the word-challenged Holly Rocket. We get the point – love transcends and confounds – but what an inelegant way to state it.