As if one didn't pick up a clue from the title, Love's Passion is clearly a "woman's film", from opening frame to closing credits. It's also the best-looking, best-produced and the hottest of the genre to date. Now, let there be no misunderstandings--your average raincoater might be disappointed with this product. It's chock full of dialogue, period costumes, candles, hand-wringing, tears, and misty filter shots... the whole ball of pseudo-romantic wax, with cinematography courtesy of Cyril Yano and Barry Wood. Yet there certainly exists an audience for this material.

The story concerns Juli Ashton, a succesful romance writer, who's just been dumped by her boyfriend, Mickey G. With such an emotional crisis boiling over, how could her agent (Herschel Savage) expect her to deliver the new manuscript in time? Well shit, he's an agent, not a human being. Perhaps a little "birthday surprise" might take his mind off of his impending 10 percent cut of the literary pie. Speaking of pies, along come Nikita and Colt Steele, right on cue for a deep dish threesome with Hersch-baby. He stuck in his thumb and pulled out a plum...

The film bounces back and forth from Juli's contemporary reality to the fictional setting of her novel, and she's the heroine in both eras. Exactly when or where the fabricated era might be is anybody's guess--the setting is Victorian, but the accents are American. A war is mentioned. We assume the Civil War, and it appears as though her husband (Mickey G.) might be a casualty. Lots of pining and crying in these sections, although sister-in-law Shanna McCullough gets to bone her beau, Tyce Bune, in a fairly tempting segment.

In the present timeline, girlfriends Shayla, RayVeness and Tina act as a satellite support group to Juli's perpetual sniffles, offerung up lingerie parties and rug-munching action to quell the momeory of her broken relationship. These lesbian trysts go the extra mile, with sandwich-like pile-ups and ass-eating action, but when Juli offers a gigolo (John Decker) for her friends' amusement, you've stumbled upon the best scene in the film. Practically hanging in the air over Decker's shoulders, Shayla is eaten while RayVeness performs a hummer on him down below. Then the girls 69 and Decker slides his pork sword up Shayla's bunghole. Nominations, anyone?

Juli asserts herself well, and also deserves a Best Actress nomination--although the overt waterworks would've been handled in a much subtler manner by Shanna, had their roles been reversed. If any criticism can be leveld at the film (aside from the contemporary disco soundtrack) it's the dialogue, which sometimes makes the transparent scenario hard to swallow. For the plot's sake, there are three different encounters between Ashton and Mickey. Individually, they're all decent (especially when he nails her tush); but taken as a whole, some variant partners would have helped.