Veronica Hart's "Torn" represents an Adult movie that dared to depart from the usual format: it's neither gonzo nor conventional storytelling, resembling instead the quirky "Indie Movie" approach that has become so popular among mainstream projects.
It stars Ginger Lynn, who obviously dominates the show with her star power and uninhibited sexuality, well-cast as a quite oversexed character who stars in a TV soap opera titled "The Ways of Our Wives". That satirical title sets the tone of fun humor that permeates the romantic, nostalgic movie.
First joke stems from Ginger's character name; Clarisse Bijou. Visited by friend Tina Tyler (delightful in a sophisticated role), she's greeted with a quote from "The Silence of the Lambs", spoken by Hannibal Lecter, making fun of her name Clarice. While packing in a maximum quantity of XXX scenes, director Hart keeps the comic relief coming at regular intervals, daring the viewer to pay attention.
But the movie is not exactly story-driven, but rather character-driven. The three principal roles represent childhood friends: Ginger, her pal Chloe and their buddy Devin Wolf who is now a dentist. They meet up in Chicago and reminisce, with their friendship pretty much the entire story.
Instead of low humor and silliness, sophisticated comedy is the strength of this picture, well-executed by a very talented cast of actors, not merely "sex performers". Mia Smiles is effective in a jail-bait role, easily seduced by Chloe in latter's striking mansion, what I refer to as the Dolby doors mansion based on the Dolby logo design of the front door, a location that has been a striking staple for porn shoots for over 20 years now.
Tyler is amusing playing a game of strip checkers (!) with Ginger, which surprisingly does not turn into a sex scene, and Ginger has a group sex with her TV co-stars (Chris Cannon, Alec Metro and Michael J. Cox) on the set of their soap opera going d.p./airtight to prove her strong-sex bona fides.
A rather strange but clever (with the cliches) scene introduces Devin Wolf, a strong leading man of the era, whose fame has not lasted the way that of his peers (like Randy Spears) has. He's a dentist, and is seduced from the dentist's chair by patient Stacy Valentine, before he has to fly off to Chicago. Valentine then has sex with his assistant Rayveness, leading to the busty ladies' threesome with a lucky repairman played by Julian. That's an abundance of talent, with Ray still going quite strong 2-1/2 decades later as a topnotch MILF. Oddly, before his larger tattoos were added, Julian gives off a definite David Duchovny vibe in this movie.
An amazing setpiece, duly noted by other reviewers, is a deadpan sequence set on Ginger's plane to Chicago. Almost Bunuelian is the presentation of how no one on the flight reacts to strange goings-on, of a sexual nature, as Ginger masturbates in her seat (with a flashlight on) during the in-flight movie showing and then has sex with the guy next to her (no less than Sean Michaels, also quite active in porn after 30 years) and nude stewardess Juli Ashton. No surprise that this turns out to be a dream sequence, but director Hart presents it quite skillfully in matter-of-fact fashion.
The Chicago scenes are loaded with nostalgia including some brief black & white footage flashbacks, and a most amusing, also dead-pan sex scene has Kylie Ireland humping a sleeping (having drunk too much) Devin Wolf, right next to her cuckolded husband Scotty Schwartz (thoroughly asleep in the bed next to them), caused by his having entered the wrong hotel room. More sex for Ginger with first Chloe and then Devin, en route to a very satisfying surprise ending.
Not to underestimate the rarity of porn this well-made and sophisticated, I wonder if only a great many more titles as fine as this one had been made in the 21st Century, perhaps gonzo would not have replaced Narrative Adult Cinema so completely. Certainly, people would not be able to so blithely write off story porn as crap -reflected for example by 99% of the reviews posted in IMDb under the Adult genre that mock the notion of "acting" and "story" in a porn release, or worse yet when praising a movie never fail to emphasize what a shock it is to encounter an interesting XXX story.