“The Truth About O”: Bobbi Starr Gotta Serve Somebody

The rulebound and trussed-up world of Ernest Greene's "O" movies is filled with sadder-but-wiser characters who wield sex with solemnity. Title character Bobbi Starr embarks on a hands-on mission to find her replacement.

03: The Truth About O

Studio: Adam & Eve
Director: Ernest Greene
Starring: Bobbi Starr, Nina Hartley, Asa Akira, Justine Joli, Jessie Andrews, Krissy Lynn, Claire Adams, James Deen, Danny Wylde, Michael Vegas, Nat Turner

Review by: Gram Ponante

As the third "O," Bobbi Starr nails the heart-attack gravity and complexity of lifestyle Master/slave relationships; this life of sex and service comes with a price we just don't see in Spring Break gangbang movies.

"O" opens on an L.A. BDSM party featuring a performance by masterful pair Claire Adams and Justine Joli in roles they play very well: Adams as the stern (but fair!) rope rigger and Joli as the blushing submissive. The crowd claps appreciatively as Joli is bound and hoisted, flogged, serviced, fucked, and fitted with a strap-on for Adams to use at her will.

It's clearly a transaction, but unlike bondage-lite movies in which the characters awkwardly don the outfits, Adams and Joli really know how to take this act on the road.

Tonight O is on a mission. She consults with imperious (but bemused!) Slave Educator Marie—Nina Hartley, who is like a tasty female version of Dottore from "Spartacus"—about the submissive suitability of Yvette (Asa Akira) and meanwhile "warms up" the pneumatic Krissy Lynn for Nat Turner.

So No, it's not a movie where a bus drives around and picks up drunk and nubile hitchhikers; O actually has duties to perform.

Writer/director Greene has developed these characters over three movies. While Hartley and Claire Adams have appeared in each one—throughlines are nearly impossible in porn—bondage photographer O has been played by Adam & Eve contract performers Carmen Luvana and Bree Olson in previous incarnations.

In my opinion, Starr's interpretation of this lifestyle choice is the most credible, though each of the "O" films is a laudably realistic portrayal of a subculture we just don't experience in "Dirtpipe Milkshakes"; each movie is worth owning.

For example, in her ongoing relationship with magazine publishing brothers (here played by James Deen and Michael Vegas), we watch the elaborate preparations and ritualized serving procedures that would seem out of place in "Barely Legal."

"I know how to take care of my master's property," says O when Steven (James Deen) admires her smooth skin.

And, as she prepares Thomas (Danny Wylde) for Yvette's departure, she lets him down (on her) easily.

"Take what pleases you," she says, reminding him that she is a loaner because she is already owned. "A true slave wants whatever brings her owner the greatest pleasure."

If the pairings and triplings of "O" seem too codified, remember that the Porn Grail—sex between people who really know how to make it look good—is there in spades. It's always fun to watch Jessie Andrews and Krissy Lynn, who inhabit two points on a very juicy spectrum, but my favorite scene comes at the end.

O has brought Akira home to photograph her (I've also tried this trick, but less successfully), when Deen walks in. The jig is up! The resulting threesome features a very useful position in which O presents herself as eye candy while Yvette absorbs Steven's thrusts directly beneath.

Exploiting what appears to be a loophole in the contract (they don't have that sort of thing on Legal Zoom, so I haven't read it), O goes on hiatus. It is bittersweet, but she does the responsible thing by leaving her master in good hands (and all the parts in between).

Nevertheless, Deen doesn't want the news. He asks Akira to read O's letter.

"Are you sure?" she says.

"You'll learn to not ask questions like that," says Deen, in a loving but necessary smackdown. He's the Master—of course he's sure.

Reading O's temporary resignation letter, Deen remarks that she even initialed it (considering her name is one letter, though, it couldn't have been too difficult).

My lone criticism of this movie is that I wanted to see more money up there. Each "O" movie since the first has visibly wept the budget that would have ensured larger casts and more locations. There's so few porn movies that shine a light on something (and I'm not just talking about a C light on Krissy Lynn's vagina, which is glorious), that I think the ones that do should have more money thrown at them.

· Adam & Eve (adamandeve.com)
· Buy "The Truth About O" (tlavideo.com)