Close Enough to Touch (2002)

This looks to be about as generic as you get - your standard issue late-night cable erotica.  However, when you read reviews on IMDb and elsewhere calling this the best soft core flick in the past couple decades, it deserves a look.

Meet the Hendersons.  The movie revolves around this dysfunctional upper middle class family.

Amanda Henderson (Monique Parent) is a lush who's inattentive to her children but very attentive to the liquor cabinet.

Jason Henderson (Bobby Johnston) is even more disinterested in his family; what interests him is making big bucks at his law firm.

Their son Neal (Jason Schnuit).  How could a boy in this cold, messed up family possibly be happy? He plans to follow in his father's footsteps and become a lawyer, but he grows less happy with his path in life each day.

There's one more Henderson - Suzanne (Brandy Montegro).  She's a model - currently wearing a schoolgirl uniform for a photo shoot.  She does nude modeling but doesn't want her parents to find out.

Suzanne has sex with her photographer, Robert (Marklen Kennedy). 

While her husband is at work, Amanda comes on strong to the gardener (Sebastien Guy).

They have sex on the stairs.  I've seen Monique Parent naked and having sex in many a B-movie, but this may be the most graphic performance I've seen her in.

Neal is dating the girl next door, Ashley (Tracy Ryan).   Her single-mother doesn't care for Neal, so he has to sneak in through the window.

Before they can get to love making, Ashley's mother comes in.  Neal has to hide under the bed.

Ashley's mother, Charlotte (Alison Miller) wants to talk about Neal - about how pathetic he is, and how she's so much better than him.  Poor Neal has to listen to this whole conversation under the bed.  But  Ashley believes Neal is going to become a successful lawyer; he's not a loser.  (If she only knew he wanted to be an artist instead.)

There's so much going on here, it's hard to keep up.  Most soft core flicks aren't this complex.  Thankfully, the human drama is interrupted with steamy sex...

 As soon as her mom leaves, Ashley means business.  She strips naked and goes to town on Neal.

 The sex scene is pretty damn explicit.  This film, although not hardcore, does not play around.

The next morning, Suzanne, the slutty bitch sister, catches Neal coming out of Ashley's window.  She says she'll be using this as blackmail in the near future.

The disinterested, mild-mannered Jason helps Charlotte with her garbage.  Clearly, there's something brewing between these two as well.

Neal acts as a paralegal at his dad's law firm.  Outside his father's office, he says an attractive lady, Elain (Riley Jordan), waiting on a couch.

 She adjusts her stockings and Neal stares slack jawed. 

Elaine is applying for a position.  She wants to be hired based on her skills and ability, not sex.  But Jason is a different person at work than he is at home.  He straight up gropes the woman against her wishes.

But it's all good.  Elaine can resist no longer and has hot sex on his desk.  This is actress Riley Jordan's only IMDb credit.

Neal brings home a friend and fellow law student, Brad - who is a little tentative about coming into this house.  You see, Brad is working his way through law school... as a gardener.  It dawns on Brad that this is the home where he shagged the bored housewife - suddenly realizing that woman was his friend's mom!

 Neal drops his books off upstairs in his room.  Amanda sees Brad and doesn't miss a beat.  She instantly undoes her bathrobe.

This may be my favorite scene.  It's so damn unexpected!  Amanda doesn't care that her son is about to come back down the stairs any second.

 However, Brad definitely cares.  He rushes to cover her up.

Neal is none the wiser. 

Suzanne takes Ashley with her to a photo shoot.

 A little later, Suzanne suggests that Ashley step outside for some fresh air... then has to come clean.  She's about to get naked.  This is a nude photo shoot.

Ashley says she doesn't mind and promises not to tell anyone. However, the photo shoot has rocked her world.

 That night, Ashley dreams about the nude photo shoot, imagining herself posing for the camera.

She gets more and more into the fantasy, molesting herself with gusto.

 Jason comes over to Charlotte's house - and I'll be you can guess where this quickly leads.

Actress Toby Miller is willing to do a pretty intense sex scene. She was only in three movies, this being her last.

 Amanda tries to seduce Brad who's grabbing a drink downstairs.  He refuses - she's married, and she's his friend's mother.  He can't do it.

 Suzanne's photo shoot has brought out the animal in Ashley. She tells Neal to press "play" on the boom box, and she does a striptease that has to be seen to be believed.

 One of the best stripteases in cinema history. I kid you not.

Afterwards, Ashley tells Neal that she wants to break up.  She's discovered a whole new side to her, and it's time to explore.

Ashley's first exploration involves watching Neal's dad, Jason, lift weights via her telescope.

This gets her hot and bothered.  Ashley then makes a move on Jason; when Neal witnesses it, he shouts at his father, calling him disgusting.

Neal goes to Elaine's house.  He's feeling fed up with his family and girlfriend, and wants something more meaningful and outside his family's boundaries.

Elaine recognized his talent and passion for art; and Neal recognized she wasn't a cold-blooded lawyer like his father - there's more to Elaine than meets the eye.

Their forbidden attraction gets their dander up, and the two commence humping.

Suzanne gets to know Brad a little better; they find out they have some things in common - in fact, Brad is able to find a side of Suzanne that isn't so slutty and vacuous.

 They have sex in the backyard.

Everything comes to a head at a party at the Hendersons, ending with Neal saying to hell with his effed-up family.  He buys a motorcycle, quits working for his dad, drops out of law school, and is going to cruise cross country to find himself.  THE END

The story is rather trite, with flimsy little stories between the various characters to serve as springboards to sex.  That being said, this is easily the most complex late-night cable erotica I've ever seen.  It reminds me of a Joseph Sarno picture (such as Confessions of an American Housewife) where the primary purpose is to show gobs of sex, but there's also a genuine intent by the director to provide a real story, with real characters and relationships.

Someone who rented this from Blockbuster in the hopes of cheap thrills and wall-to-wall nudity would not walk away disappointed.  The sex is a lot more graphic than I expected, and the nudity is constant.  But if you're intention is to not fast-forward through the dialog, and actually watch a movie, there's a real story here.  Like American Beauty and The Ice Storm, it spotlights the emptiness of the suburbs, the shallow lives behind the McMansions.  Obviously, it doesn't tell the tale as cleverly, but the point is still made, and it adds a dimension to the film that you wouldn't expect to find in a straight-to-video or late-night-cable sex film.

★★★★★★★★☆☆