Do You Wanna Play?
Going into this film, I was just as baffled as you about what “on the doll” was supposed to mean, but I guessed it had something to do with prostitution and pornography. (Turns out it’s a reference to child abuse that I’ll let the film elaborate on.)
Weird title aside, 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.
