Inside Lara Roxx (2011) User Reviews

Doesn't go inside enough

[dennisne · 6/10 · 31 January 2013]

This biopic doesn't really delve very far "into" Lara Roxx. The director painfully tries to use her for her own naive agenda (mandatory condoms in porn?!), whilst the protagonist resists this over-simplification and detachment, and yearns for the one and only thing she never gets -- love. She never got it from her parents. She didn't get it from the director. The film never attempts to properly explore the more difficult and important issues of her childhood -- the abandonment she experienced from her parents and family -- although there are hints of this that a more discerning viewer might be able to piece together.

There is a real story to be told here, with the charismatic and honest Lara that anyone should be able to identify with, but it's not in this movie.

A solid effort, but needed to explore even further Lara's "Emotional HIV".

[akeanefan · 6/10 · 19 September 2013]

I have to say that this was a very solid effort by filmmaker Mia Donovan and I want to give her a twenty-year supply of Kudos for reaching out to someone like Lara who had tons of emotional baggage. Toward the end of the film, Lara reveals something that I already knew the very first time I saw her in the news reports--her incestuous past with her father. This actually became evident to me when she said that she "mentally broke out of her body" as she endured the double penetration scene and "thought about the sand and the beach" and other peaceful places. This is a very common occurrence that takes place with sexual abuse victims as it is their only means of escaping the horror that they are enduring. There were a few other items that were brought out in regards to Lara's troubled past. However, this is where I feel this documentary failed. The real issue here is not condoms in porn nor is it necessarily HIV. The real issue is Lara's "Emotional HIV" and I felt the documentary didn't go as far as it should have in regards to this. I can tell you right now that Lara shed a lot more tears than what this film showed. She was obviously carrying around LOADS of emotional baggage. Think about it. She had her trust violated and her innocence stolen from the very one who should have been there to protect her--her father. Also, Lara has relayed in numerous interviews in the past that her parents constantly argued with each other, thus putting a lot of emotional strain on Lara and her siblings. I really have the hope of meeting Lara one day and when this time comes, I would love to be able to encourage her to form a foundation that deals not only helping other girls out there like her to not fall into the traps that she did in the porn business, but also to provide counseling and help for these girls' "emotional HIV" and help them to heal as well. This, I feel, would be the best thing to take place because, let's face it. If Lara had the love that she needed existing in her home life when growing up, she would have never gotten involved in the porn business in the first place. Also, what really angered me when her story became news was the unbelievably cruel and harsh comments that were hurled at her on the internet, with many people calling her a "whore" and saying that she deserved HIV. Uh, excuse me? Yeah, why don't you all just act like a bunch of boneheads and kick this poor girl while she's down. This clearly angered me to no end and really saddened me to think that this is how low society has gotten. Anyway, despite in not going further than it perhaps should have, "Inside Lara Roxx" is still worth a viewing. There are some rather tender moments and Mia does a good job with the direction of the film.

A side note-- there are numerous therapies that are being utilized that have had great success with abuse victims. One of these is known as Emotional Freedom Technique or EFT and a good book on the subject is "The Promise Of Energy Psychology". I think that it would benefit Lara to read up on this so that she could perhaps utilize it for herself and also to help other girls like her to the pathway to healing their "emotional HIV" as well.

My email: [e-mail]

There's a compelling film somewhere involving this woman's sad, tragic life, but Inside Lara Roxx is not it.

[framer94 · 5/10 · 1 October 2012]

I waited a year to see this film- prior to seeing it, I saw the trailer- which presented a dark, frightening documentary with graphic and disturbing undertones (through watching the trailer, that is the impression of the kinda subject matter one will see in the film).After watching the film itself though, I feel that the trailer took certain scenes from the film and manipulated them to make the trailer 'scary.'

Th film, I thought, captures Lara at her best moments, but it does not capture the tragedy and misery of what she actually experienced. It is more of an arms length feeling towards the film's subject. Lara seems to have been filmed, for the most part at her best- the trust gained by the director results in a disappointing peep into the horror of Lara's realisation of being HIV+ and having to face reality...

Throughout the director voices the film with a robotic-monotone type narration and the overall feeling is the product of college freshmen's first project of the first academic year.

Give it a watch, but it is by no means what you will expect it to be. I dare say the imagery I had in my head after seeing the trailer was far more dark and graphic than the actual content of the film...

A tender, important, beautiful film! A must see documentary.

[GormanBechard · 9/10 · 1 April 2012]

I saw Inside Lara Roxx last night at the Boston Underground Film Festival and was quite simply blown away.

This is an almost perfect film that follows a young woman for 6 years, after her discovery that she contracted the HIV virus after a wrong choice. Yes, that choice was porn, but the film is really not about porn, or the porn industry. It's really about the choices one young woman makes, and the consequences of those decisions. And it never judges Lara for those decisions. Instead it's a portrait of a girl who could be the girl next door. A girl who did the wrong things to impress a guy. Lara is quite possibly your daughter, you just don't know it yet.

The film's journey is an emotional roller coaster ride through the ups and many downs as Lara copes not only with the disease, coming to terms with it, and then not, but with the side effects of both the drugs to treat it, and the illegal drugs she takes to seemingly help her get through the day.

Director Mia Donovan herself becomes a part of the film as she befriends Lara, and helps her whenever she can. And honestly she probably helped Lara most by holding up this mirror to her, and allowing her to save herself.

It's brave filmmaking. It's thoughtfully edited. And having been on the film festival circuit for over a year with my Replacements documentary, I can easily say Inside Lara Roxx is one of the best documentaries of recent years.

If you're turned off in any way by the subject matter, don't be. This is a must see along the lines of Gasland or Devil And Daniel Johnston. It's a great film. It's an important film.

Powerful Study

[dallasryan · 9/10 · 5 November 2022]

Really great Doc by Mia Donovan. The documentary takes place over the span of 7 years. It shows the ups and downs of Lara Roxx. It's a powerful study of a person and an ex-pornstar. Lara's character study is a great delineation of how a lot of women get into porn. Lara is also incredibly smart too. The way Lara articulates things is almost on this brilliant existential level. Lara (Pascale) could have been an amazing author I think. She has a lot to say about things.

Unfortunately her drug abuse was always her crutch--as the film so brilliantly shows us. What Lara may have accomplished if she would have just been slightly different. But at the same time, she accomplished a lot with getting the message out there about HIV, and she did a lot of good with that. She is one of the well known fighters--who used to be in porn--against HIV.

William Marigold stated that it wasn't the porn industry's fault that she got HIV. In a sense, he's right and also wrong about this at the same time. After the 1998 HIV outbreak in porn happened--that 'should' have ended any further outbreaks from happening from there on out...However, life still does happen. If someone is in the military--there is a chance of death. If someone is a fireman--there is a chance of getting burned...and the same rule applies with a pornstar unfortunately.

And there is a truth to what that one woman said in the film. People should know that if they are going to get into porn, it is more than likely they will get herpes; they do not always test for that (which time is money and they know they may never get to shoot the scene if every single performer keeps popping up with a positive herpes test. Ergo that is why it is 'not' tested some of the time and even a lot of the time).

But again, Lara was really brilliant and she did do a lot of good after what happened to her. And as I stated, I think she would be an incredible writer. Well done to Mia Donovan. Great documentary!

It's interesting, when I saw 'American Movie', I asked myself, 'How did Chris Smith know that Mark Borchardt would be fascinating...How did he know?' And I ask myself that same question with this film, 'How did Mia Donovan know that Lara Roxx would be fascinating.'