A haphazardly revealing documentary, intermittently interesting in spite of itself. Gough Lewis's herky-jerky approach isn't consistent---frequently he cuts off potentially interesting developments (Grace's family situation and rage at her oppressive Singaporean upbringing, fascinating clues to her psychosexual makeup, are barely touched on) and even the more prurient and lurid elements (the making of the gang-bang video, the hypocritically scathing assessment of Grace/Annabel's persona by her porn producer) are given perfunctory treatment, while some of the more positive aspects of her life (concerned classmates and her one or two genuinely supportive friends) barely register. The squalor of Grace's everyday life becomes chillingly mundane and repetitive by the midway point; how many shots must we see of her apartment in disarray? Structurally the film's only intermittently involving---the film takes a jumbled, confused course from Grace's childhood, porn career, family visits and academic life, never creating a consistent dialogue with each element and therefore failing to engage the audience as either a character study or lurid gawkfest.
The film is, inadvertently, telling when it comes to Annabel/Grace. Grace Quek's theorizing and intellectualized justification for her notorious record-setting actions come off as tiresome and unconvincing. What's ultimately more compelling are the glimpses into Annabel/Grace's ruptured persona. To say that she's a conflicted personality is a mild understatement---for all her talk of self-empowerment, of making a statement about controlling her sexuality, Grace comes off as someone who is anything but in control of her emotions and internal demons. Fifty percent ambitious academic control-freak, twenty-five percent regressive China Doll, and the remainder Hysterical Head Case, Grace/Annabel/Whomever is less successful in proving her case to the world than proving the spiritual futility of her quest for self-actualization. Morality aside, her lame attempts at intellectualization provoke more pity than contempt--- the revelations about her life (oppressive childhood milieu, an alleged gang-rape in her teenage years, the lax HIV screening of the participants of the 251-men Screw-A-Thon) reveal a serious LACK of self-examination and belie her futile attempts at asserting her sexual persona of control and empowerment. Her academic discourse reveals itself as a disorganized jumble of babble, an ineffective salve for Annabel's existential crises---the poor girl got screwed, and instead of screwing the world back, she's really just switched the masks on the faces of her internal demons.
For an interesting comparison, see Ryu Murakami's "Tokyo Decadence".
The film is, inadvertently, telling when it comes to Annabel/Grace. Grace Quek's theorizing and intellectualized justification for her notorious record-setting actions come off as tiresome and unconvincing. What's ultimately more compelling are the glimpses into Annabel/Grace's ruptured persona. To say that she's a conflicted personality is a mild understatement---for all her talk of self-empowerment, of making a statement about controlling her sexuality, Grace comes off as someone who is anything but in control of her emotions and internal demons. Fifty percent ambitious academic control-freak, twenty-five percent regressive China Doll, and the remainder Hysterical Head Case, Grace/Annabel/Whomever is less successful in proving her case to the world than proving the spiritual futility of her quest for self-actualization. Morality aside, her lame attempts at intellectualization provoke more pity than contempt--- the revelations about her life (oppressive childhood milieu, an alleged gang-rape in her teenage years, the lax HIV screening of the participants of the 251-men Screw-A-Thon) reveal a serious LACK of self-examination and belie her futile attempts at asserting her sexual persona of control and empowerment. Her academic discourse reveals itself as a disorganized jumble of babble, an ineffective salve for Annabel's existential crises---the poor girl got screwed, and instead of screwing the world back, she's really just switched the masks on the faces of her internal demons.
For an interesting comparison, see Ryu Murakami's "Tokyo Decadence".