Film
Boogie Nights
- Director
- Paul Thomas Anderson
- Certificate
- 18
- Running Time
- 155 mins
Despite the climactic, legendary shot of its star’s prosthetically enhanced trouser python, writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson’s 1997 film is essentially a feelgood fairy tale about innocence lost, then partially regained, in the non-stop sex party of ‘70s LA. The plot may be looser than the trousers worn by porn star Dirk Diggler (Mark Wahlberg), sprawling across the era like a bubble-permed Goodfellas, but trashy disco tack is never allowed to drown out the human drama, and it’s all bound together by universally great performances. Wahlberg plays the John Holmes-style stud with beautifully measured conviction, Heather Graham skilfully conjures a sympathetic figure out of his permanently vacant nymphomaniac co-star, and a knowingly cast Burt Reynolds weighs in with a grey-templed variation on his younger self as avuncular porn baron Jack Horner.
This screening is presented by the Princess Row Disco Club. Excitingly, your ticket price includes admission to an actual disco afterwards.
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