Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn (2021)
…………………………………………………
Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn Movie Review
Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn is a 2021 Romanian comedy drama film directed by Radu Jude and starring Katia Pascariu. It’s a very unique and engaging dramedy.
Emi, a school teacher, finds her career and reputation under threat after a personal sex tape is leaked on the Internet. Forced to meet the parents demanding her dismissal, Emi refuses to surrender to their pressure. This movie touches upon a very complex issue – whether or not it is acceptable for a teacher to do pornography. The film itself is entirely liberal in this regard, which I did appreciate to a degree, but this subject required more complex examination instead of this black-and-white approach.
………………………………………………….
………………………………………………….
With that being said, I still appreciated the film’s realistic depiction of the society’s attitude toward sex and sexual activities and how stuck up, fake and righteous most people act when discussing these issues. That final meeting with the parents and the teacher was so well done, featuring believable, amusing dialogue and a positively unhinged finale that consists of three different endings, the last one being particularly memorable and insane.
But the rest of the film was rarely as strong as that third act. The opening featured a full-on pornographic video that was daringly explicit and I admired that about it. But the second act was the part where the movie lost me a bit. This is where Radu Jude engaged in arthouse sensibilities and unique genre-bending. The comedic touches worked, but those faux documentarian segments did not fully work for me.
They gave the movie a lot of artistic credibility for sure, but they to me felt artificially included only to gain said credibility. Some of those segments really worked and were insightful, but most had nothing to do with the subject at hand and they felt like serious padding.
………………………………………………….
………………………………………………….
Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn is superbly crafted on a technical front, which is expected from this phenomenal filmmaker. I still loved his ‘Aferim!’ much more, but this was another solid outing for him. The directing is strong, the editing is fantastic and the movie is so well shot and scored. The protagonist was very well developed and performed while the others are just there for plot purposes.
Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn has a flawed second act that was a big stylistic swing from the director, but it didn’t fully connect to the rest of the film thematically speaking. Still, this is a very well written and so well crafted dramedy about this teacher whose life turns upside down when her sex tape is leaked online. Though it didn’t fully delve into these themes, the dialogue is excellent and the third act is undeniably memorable, especially the final sequence.
My Rating – 4
This is the seventh and final film in my Eastern European series where I covered one film per decade that is from a country in this region. It has been a pretty good run with the best films being Forest of the Hanged, Whale and Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn.
Results
