Porn comedy has its moments but results are less than "Bliss"



Finding Bliss (2010) 
96 min., rated R.
Grade: C 

"Finding Bliss," a limp but raunchy indie comedy, is semi-autobiographical of writer-director Julie Davis ("Amy's Orgasm"), who once edited for Playboy. Earnest-to-God Leelee Sobieski plays Jody, a prudish, persistent 24-year-old NYU film grad, who writes a great script but can't get it noticed in Los Angeles. So when she has an interview with Grind Productions, and getting “Charlie's Anals” confused with “Charlie's Angels,” she takes the editing job for a hot porn (sorry, “adult entertainment”) director and figures she can shoot her film at the studio after hours. 

There's a funny, insightful comedy about a dogged female filmmaker starting out in porn in here somewhere, but rather than staying as a sex sitcom, it tries being a frank commentary on sex versus love and another clichéd rom-com. Comically insured Caroline Aaron and Kristen Johnston rise to the occasion, so to speak, respectively playing Jody's mom and Grind's producer, but the Garry Marshall cameo falls flat and Jamie Kennedy is unfunny as a dim porno stud (who gets the chance to do a little full-frontal). "Finding Bliss" gets by with some blissfully entertaining moments, but the “plot surprise” about the porn star Bliss's identity is awfully obvious in a movie that makes its title an easy task.

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