The Stepmother 6

Nica Noelle demonstrates her prowess as an Adult Cinema director as well as her sensitivity in the 6th volume of this hit Sweet Sinner series, scaling down the action (and budget) to simply a four-character play.

Doe-eyed Shay Fox plays the title character, newly engaged to widower Evan Stone, whose son is also planning to make it permanent with girlfriend April O'Neil, under the urgings of daddy who thinks April is the ideal match for his medical student kid.

In place of story development (no screenwriter is credited) beyond the genre's inevitable May/December hook-up, Nica concentrates on the characters, with all four performers rising to the acting occasion, their sexual pedigrees not an issue. Even Stone, who most directors leave to his own tendency to ham it up and act silly for the camera, is subdued and like his co-stars builds an empathetic, believable character.

Both Shay and April were new to the Sweet Sinner label and clearly adapted well (and enjoyed) Nica's dictum of "Real Lovemaking" which she voices over under the credits of each show, even now many years after she jumped ship to start other labels (including her current Icon Male home of Gay Porn for the same parent company Mile High).

What makes the formulaic structure of 4 scenes and in this case all possible heterosexual pairings displayed rise above the generic is the simplicity of the direction and the psychological logic of the seductions and acquiescences. In the third vignette, departing from the current "stand-alone sex scene for streaming" format of internet porn including Sweet Sinner's own website, there is plenty of dialog, foreshadowing and soft-core material, leaving only 13 minutes for the impromptu Evan/April coupling. That duo memorably had sex a year later in Nica's "Immoral Proposal" feature for Sweet Sinner, something of a watershed movie for me in her career.

Reed flashes his boyish charm (despite admitting to having shot over 1000 hardcore scenes my mid-2011 in his BTS short subject interview) and has a beefcake scene with chest bared when he's helping Shay move into his dad's house, while the contrast between the ladies' ample breasts (Shay's fake and April's eminently natural) is a nice touch. Instead of a knee- jerk reaction to the "no big names, only 2 actresses on screen" format, I found this chamber romance aimed at Couples most rewarding.