JEZEBEL

US, 2019, 88 minutes, Colour.
Tiffany Tenille, Numa Perrier, Brett Gelman, Stephen Barrington, Bobby Field, Rockwelle Dortch, Dennis Jaffee, Zoe Tyson.
Directed by Numa Perrier.

This is a small budget film written and directed by Numa Perrier who also plays a central role.

This is the story of an African- American family, hardships, attempts to find jobs, and connections with the sex industry.

The focus is on Tiffany Tenille as the younger sister, her older sister, Sabrina (Perrier) making a living by answering sex phone calls. Everybody in the cramped house is able to hear, young child, a teenage son, and Sabrina’s white boyfriend who also lives there.

The film presents the family warmly, strengths, criticisms and antagonisms. The teenage boy goes out and gets a job as a busboy. The boyfriend also gets a job.

Tiffany goes to an agency in Las Vegas, is immediately auditioned and given a job. She is taken under the wing of Vicki, who works for her brother who manages the company. Their role is online sexual behaviour, communication by Internet messages rather than by voice, the men unable to hear the comments (adverse or favourable) from the women. The language is generally in the tantalising vein with some explicit remarks and online behaviour, but always being careful of legislation. Tiffany is successful but takes exception to one man referring to her as ‘nigger bitch’, her resentful of the use of the word ‘nigger’. She tries to get other jobs, lined things up, possibilities in the porn industry.

In the background, is the concern about their ailing mother, the visits to her, her eventual death, their not having enough money to pay for the funeral.

There are some quarrels between the two sisters with Sabrina suggesting Tiffany move out and be on her own – but, the film ending, with a reconciliation between the two sisters, Tiffany getting her job back in the prospect of making a success of her life, possibly with one of the clients who sends her presents and almost courts her (even though he says he has a wife and children).

An entry to go into a different kind of world, an experience of the soft porn world, yet a look at the human characters involved.