What I admire most about X is that the filmmakers trust their concept and execution so much that they don’t feel the need to turn their story about an exclusive sex party into a Skin-a-MAX late-night thriller. There’s very little nudity, and most of the acts are implied just outside the camera’s frame. It’s a bold choice that pays off because the story works.
The story takes a while to warm up and establish its real plotline. In the meantime, screenwriters Scott J. Ramsey and Hannah Katherine Jost do a fantastic job defining what the party is while not making the story about the gala. Christian and Danny go to great lengths discussing how they pulled it together and kept the party safe while meeting the erotic needs of the guests and making it prosecution-proof.
“Bolvin, Raymond, and Smick have great chemistry together, and they portray rich, fully developed characters.”
In the end, when sh*t goes down, if the protagonists felt comfortable with their own identities, and if society didn’t have such hang-ups about what people do behind closed doors, there would be no crap to go down.
What ultimately sold me on the film was the three lead characters. Bolvin, Raymond, and Smick have great chemistry together, and they portray rich, fully developed characters. Each one of them is grounded as believable people — someone you or I might know. Hope Raymond is excellent as a woman holding her life and secrets together by the loosest of threads.
X gives me what I want the most in my movies: good storytelling. It doesn’t matter who’s in it, the size of the budget, or the nature of the content; just tell a good story. This is exactly what happens here.
"…don't feel the need to turn their story...into a Skin-a-MAX late-night thriller."
