I have no idea what “on the doll” means, but I guess it has something to do with
prostitution and pornography. Thomas Mignone’s harrowing film is an expose of sorts
into the sex trade underworld, offering interlocking tales that involve a call girl
(Brittany Snow) who’s looking to rob her richest client, two teens (Candice Accola and
Chole Domont) who’re lured into Internet porn by their seedy teacher, and a porn
ad editor (Josh Janowicz) who is trying to pay off a mobster to get an old friend
out from behind the glass at a peep show booth. But it isn’t just sex that ties them
all together, there is loads of violence surrounding their lives every day.
Most of On the Doll’s stories are writ small, but each is intense (save for one, which
concerns another fetish-oriented call girl who’s trying to get out of the business…
and failing). Mignone does a remarkable job at taking what starts as a mild flirtation
or tiptoeing into perversity and showing how baby steps can soon lead to full-on,
downhill slides. The movie is surprisingly at its best in the story of the two teens,
who first flirt with their perverted teacher (played memorably by Ocean’s 11 series
character actor Eddie Jemison), then end up taking a ride with him to the local
web porn production studio, where they’re crudely sized up for their value to the
viewing audience. It’s a shocking transition: Just minutes earlier these girls were
worrying about their grades.
On the Doll’s finally tries to wrap everything up tidily, which is perhaps the wrong
approach for a movie about an industry with no happy endings. Memorable more for
its performances than its plot, this somewhat scrappy independent doesn’t fade from
the mind quickly.
The DVD includes a commentary from Mignone, behind-the-scenes featurettes, and deleted
scenes (which are unfortunately marred by commentary that overlaps them at exactly
the same volume as the standard audio).