Going Down in LA-LA Land

Wide-eyed, impossibly wholesome-looking boy next door Adam (blank-stare artist Matthew Ludwinski) arrives in big, bad Los Angeles with dreams of becoming a star. You know the rest…sort of. Based on Andy Zeffer’s 2006 novel, writer-director Casper Andreas’s seedy-side-of-showbiz comedy certainly has a predictable good-boy-in-the-evil-city narrative, but it also takes a refreshingly non-judgmental view of sex work, neither glamorizing nor moralizing Adam’s descent into the world of porn and prostitution. A handful of weird cameos—from Alec Mapa and Judy Tenuta to Bruce Vilanch (as a kindly smut peddler)—are amusing, while Allison Lane’s insecure BFF and Jesse Archer’s bitchy boss both show comic spark. But the Pretty Woman–style final act is fairly creepy, leaving a sour aftertaste to this otherwise sweet, if insubstantial, confection.