There are some parts of who we are that we can't and shouldn't change. The cast of this video - director Michael Raven's porn remake of the 1983 Richard Gere vehicle, Breathless (which, in turn, was an Americanized version of the 1959 Jean-Paul Belmondo-starring Breathless) - demonstrates that truth richly in their performances. To be breathless - without breath - is to be dead and intensely alive at the same time.

Devinn Lane starts things off as a woman who goes through unfulfilling flings with men before finding happiness with April. The alternative to that life is shown with her crying alone, being left by a guy she shouldn't have been with. Lane and April roll around on a bed in a room lit by the morning sun, and the two glow. They look amazing fingering and tonguing each other, and the intensity is where it needs to be.

From there we go to police officer Steven St. Croix trying to convince hooker girlfriend Sydnee Steele to give up tricking and be with him. It's a great scene with St. Croix portraying a man taking what he feels he shouldn't want. When it's over, he asks her again to quit and she declines. He finds her later, killed by Dallas (played by Evan Stone). St. Croix lies to everyone from then on about loving her, and it works.

Stone and Lane meet, and she is seduced by the change that he can deliver. His entrance is creepy, as he is shown lighting his cigarettes with Steele's lighter with a flashback to him lingering over Steele's body. Stone literally took Steele's breath away and here we are reminded that he killed someone dually considered expendable and loved.

The decision to have the two be in love/lust/obsession is problematic as Lane only performs with women, and in every form of porn logic this reviewer follows, the two should fuck - period. To have them not feels wrong and the only acknowledgement of that occurs where they share "pet" Venus, who turns them in. In the plot, though, it's right because it's true to the fact that Lane really doesn't want to be with Stone, but that she was addicted to what he gave her. They don't fuck because they aren't supposed to be together. Lane sells well a junkie sense of the numbness that is felt when the drug - here, the thrill of crime- has finally reached a tolerance and there's nowhere to go.

When Stone lies to Lane to get her to surrender - knowing in his heart that the cops are going to kill him - Stone's character stays vicious yet his fear is right on the surface. Lane ends up in April's arms, seemingly unscathed by it all but in a voiceover, she states that when she thinks of him, she has to remind herself to breathe. It is there on her face and she appears aged by knowing Stone. Anything worth it gives you lines like that.

This video has a refined look to it, as good as any of Raven's other, critically acclaimed works (including Beast, Underworld and Watchers, AVN's 2001 Best Film), and is shot very well. From the golden haze of Lane's scene with April, to the gritty hotel room in the rain where St. Croix and Steele explore their almost-love, to Stone in the desert orating solo, to Lane gray with what could have been, it all looks like it is supposed to, which is not as easy as it sounds.

Ready for the pre-nom roundelay? Good. Best Girl/Girl Sex Scene - Video to April and Lane, Best Couples Sex Scene - Video to Steele and St. Croix, Best Actress - Video to Lane, Best Actor - Video to Stone, Best Supporting Actor - Video to St. Croix, and Best Non-Sex Performance to Mike Horner, who is remarkable as Lane's policeman father who learns to accept his daughter's girlfriend when faced with losing Lane. Also: Best Videography to Raven, Jack Vincennes and Jake Jacobs; Best Screenplay to Raven and Devan Sapphire, and Best Director -Video to Raven. Pre-nom the tape itself for Best Video Feature.