Room in Rome

Room in Rome is one of those exploitative “art films” that comes off more like pretentious porn than anything. While I am comfortable saying I am qualified to review sleaze, I feel less comfortable reviewing art films like these. These films have the same amount of sex, nudity, melodrama, thin plot and general exploitation as actual exploitation films but their motivations are more opaque.

Motivations for events in exploitation films are very simple— just put stuff on film that you want to see on film. You think lesbians are hot? Here’s a bunch of them. You wanna see someone get their head ripped of? Done and done. But art films can have those same plot points and scenes. Except when two women are fucking it’s not really two women fucking. Instead, it’s a metaphor or an exploration of intimacy or some nonsense. I don’t know what qualities I’m supposed to focus on. Am I actually supposed to look past the constantly naked women and find some sort of deeper meaning here? Or am I just supposed to enjoy the naked women while still feeling intellectually superior? I don’t know.

Room in Rome takes place almost solely in a singular room. Said room happens to be in Rome. Go figure. After main characters Alba and Natasha decide to spend the night together, the action never leaves the boundaries of their shared hotel room. It’s rather like the camera is on house arrest. Room in Room follows Alba and Natasha’s single night together. They have a lot of sex during said night . It’s sex that’s often a little more, uh, advanced than the kind of sex one usually has with someone the first night they meet. During their numerous periods of afterglow, Alba and Natasha open up to each other. They talk about their individual lives and create the ”plot” in between the pretentious porn, allowing the film to be considered an art film as opposed to just ostentatious pornography.

As an art film, I find this film devoid of merit. It doesn’t push any boundaries, say anything profound or have much depth to it. Perhaps the “frank and honest” portrayal of lesbian sexuality was supposed to be the boundary-pushing, arty focus. Except that element wasn’t treated with enough respect to work.

This film is directed by a male and there is male gaze in full effect. Nudity and an unwillingness to cut away from a sex scene early does not make a film an honest portrayal of sex. The sex is too ideal, too glamorized and too polished. The actresses fail to be real people during the sex scenes. Instead, they become two beautiful dolls who the director poses together for his own gratification. It’s one of those movies that tells you more about what the director finds hot than what the characters do. Their own desires and fantasies are too tangled up in that of their creator and the execution of said fantasies is a little too ideal. Also much like porn, the actual plot (you know, that filler in the movie where the characters are talking instead of fucking) isn’t even worth talking about.

On the lone, non-sex related note in this review, lead actresses Elena Anaya and Natasha Yarovenko are great in this. Fearless and with great chemistry, these two women act their tiny, perfect butts off.

At the end of the day, Room in Room is pretty hot. I’m sorry. It has little valid artistic merit, but if you want to see two beautiful women engaging in a bunch of well-shot sex scenes, Room in Rome exists.

Overall rating: 5.8/10

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