Heartburn

This feature movie from MissaX departs from the label's usual emphasis on taboo content, instead presenting a married woman's difficulty to find a man who will respect her independence. It's a real-world dilemma addressed within an erotic perspective.

Heroine Olive Glass is a frustrated housewife, back to school and working on her skills as a writer, but neglected by hubby Ryan Driller. She has a romantic (read: Sexual) fling with the convenient auto repairman Clarke Kent. She gets both bad and good advice from her self-centered best friend and neighbor Rachael Cavalli. All the while we get to see both Cavalli and Driller's diminutive secretary/mistress Coco Lovelock in XXX action, but neither of them is much more than a peripheral character. Even Cavalli's young lover Max Fills gets very short shrift, as Maddy Burton's screenplay concentrates on Olive's plight.

The talent does a good job, both acting-wise and in the four sex scenes, but the story never reaches the lofty dramatic heights of "Scenes from a Marriage". A happy ending for Driller & his spouse has a cute twist near the end, but not cheerful enough to compensate for the preceding soap opera scenes.