Pandorica Bleu, $0.99
Contemporary Erotica, 2017
Somewhat shy and virginal Lucas, who’s eighteen years old, wants his best buddy Max a lot. When Max invites him to a holiday in Italy, little did he realize that Max’s girlfriend Lilith is coming along too. Will he finally be able to have sex for the first time with Max, or is he reduced to sniffing Max’s soiled underpants to get his jollies?
That’s The Holiday in a nutshell. There’s nothing deep or meaningful here, just randy beautiful people looking to get off. While there is a romantic element here, the characters can get around far more than a romance novel typically allows, so it’s probably more accurate to describe this as one of those dramatic, somewhat arty-farty European films that pretend to be some coming of age movie, when most people would be watching these films just to see the cast naked.
Initially, the author’s tendency to use minimal dialogues, preferring instead of throw in reams of exposition, can leave me wondering whether this is going to be an unbalanced all-told, nothing-shown story. In a way, it’s very much that, but it’s done in a way that can still allow me to immerse myself into the atmospheric setting. Sure, the dynamics of the characters here aren’t anything I haven’t come across before in similar stories, and Lucas is kind of bland and whiny as a main character, but I still find myself engrossed in the story. It also helps that the portrayal of Lilith – her name is an anvil as blatant as a pick-ax between the eyes, I tell you – and another female character is nowhere as misogynistic as I feared at first. Let’s just say that they aren’t the enemy, shrill hos, or anything like that, thank goodness.
So yes, I do like The Holiday. I’m still somewhat torn between thinking that the story ends on a right note or feeling frustrated because I want to read more about these people, but still, the fact that it leaves me feeling this way shows that the author has done something right after all.
