Sometimes, very rarely, porn brushes past the sublime, like an unremarkable athlete achieving something that he’ll never get close to again – Don Larsen pitching a perfect game in the 1956 World Series, Kurt Warner winning a Super Bowl, McGlinchy singlehandedly baffling an intimidating crew of Royal Navy footballers; porn, to be honest, is more often trying to pick the pocket of the sublime on the way by, but sometimes a little grace brushes off on porn’s grimy coat. “Manon’s Perfume” has something going for it. I don’t know exactly what, but it lays claim to a little real story amongst the gynecology and debauchery.

“Manon’s Perfume” is the story of a Paris socialite, a sophisticated businessman with a beautiful wife; they’re habitues of the high-end Parisian sex party scene, which looks exactly like you’d want it to look – beautiful people in crazy masks penetrating each other in a club full of dark leather and wood paneling. A long night turns tragic when Christophe leaves without Karen and her ride home ends up being an out of control motorcycle. Karen dies, leaving Christophe to mourn in his own way, which includes drinking, moping at clubs filled with people too young for him, and fucking hookers from the equally vibrant Paris back-alley prostitution scene.

A chance encounter in a nightclub while Christophe is trying to drink away his sorrows leads to a date with Manon, a willful young woman who impulsively dumps her jealous boyfriend and buttonholes Christophe for a ride home and then his phone number; after he declines her invitation to come up at the end of the ride, she calls him at his office to ask him out. “I’m too dangerous for you,” he says. “You’re a pretty butterfly, but I’d hate to see your wings get burned.” Leaving aside his incomplete knowledge of the habits of lepidoptera, Christopher knows women, and Manon reacts exactly the way he knew she would, taking that as a challenge. “Your wings will burn before mine do,” she replies, unaware that her new acquaintance is pretty sophisticated.

Manon, it seems, looks exactly like his deceased wife, and therein lies the danger and the drama. By the weekend, she’s kitted out in bondage gear and a ballgag, letting Christophe farm her out to strangers in a peepshow booth. Christophe, it seems, gets off on a little public sex, a little humiliation, a little Story-of-O type D/s head game that he can indulge in at will, given his money and sophisticated contacts. As their relationship progresses, she finds out little by little about the circumstances of his grief and comes to realize what she means to him.

“Manon’s Perfume” isn’t the best porn movie ever, but there’s something compelling about it; surprisingly a lot of that comes from its male star, Pascal St. James. Its women – Manon Martin in the lead role, supported by Cecilia de Lys, Chloe LaCourt, Lea Guerlin, Anna Siline, Anais Lacroix, and Anissa Kate – are all attractive and sexy, with great bodies, but it’s St. James who provides all the dramatic tension. He looks and acts like a just-slightly-low-rent Daniel Craig – not quite so fine-featured, nor as handsome, but brooding and stony. The story is interesting but ultimately inconclusive, fizzling slightly at the last, but not thin or silly. Is St. James enough to make this a good movie? Hard to say, but it’s well-dubbed, well-appointed and very watchable. You’ll have to decide for yourself, but I doubt you’ll be disappointed – Marc Dorcel rarely fails at delivering, at the very least, a quality product.

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