Oriental Rose

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this, but found on watching that it had some magnetism and interest. The main character in the story, Christine Reade (Riley Keogh) who as well as providing a full GFE mainly has a flair for listening to the people who are her clients, which they all seemed to lack in their own lives. For this she charges £2,000+ a time as a high-end escort and role-player. That Keogh plays an intern in a firm of lawyers as well as a law student as well as coming from a happy, well-to-do family thoroughly perplexed by Christine’s lifestyle choices, contrasts all these different worlds as the main character wears different masks. In a similar way, the story seems to me to combine a few different movie genres as well. Whether that’s believable or not depends on your personal point of view, but as adult TV entertainment it works up to a point. There’s not a lot of humour in it though, and many of the characters seem to speak in the same deadpan expressionless way as Christine herself, apart from the times they are otherwise occupied with her. I also noticed that this film has surprisingly little lighting. What happened there? It may be a dark, illicit secret story but not every scene has to be low-lit, not does everyone need to be in dark suits with the set looking as if the scenes have been shot in the same swish penthouse apartment with a few hasty changes each time. As a watching experience, there’s a curious monotony running through this, lightened only by the occasional burst of soundtrack jazz in elevators. Even the the escorts’ glamorous dresses when they go to meet clients look muted in colour. Speaking of which, nearly all the cast are white-skinned apart from one other intern working with Christine in the law firm. We don’t see any GFEs of colour either. No LOTR cast diversity debate here then. As the story’s North American setting is mainly in Chicago apart from when Christine flies out to Toronto, this just doesn’t ring true. My verdict: a glimpse into a powerful, sexy but ultimately unconvincing world.