Truth And "Dare" with Dani Daniels

I’m convinced that the future of porn (if there is one) most reliably rests in first-person adventures like Dani Daniels’ “Dare,” in which the movie is all about the personality of its star.

Studio: Elegant Angel
Director: Mason
Starring: Dani Daniels, Manuel Ferrara, Erik Everhard, Sinn Sage, Karlie Montana, James Deen, Mick Blue

(We have heard of sideboob and underboob, but the simple but provocative cover of “Dani Daniels: DARE” (in which the Orange County native performs her first boy/girl scene) is remarkable for its undervadge.)

I happened to watch Digital Sin’s “Meet Bonnie (Rotten)” first, but Elegant Angel’s star vehicle for Daniels similarly suits its namesake’s style. Then it is up to the consumer which woman (he) likes better.

Daniels, like Rotten, is unabashedly her own age, and exults in being at the right place at the right time.

“I am so ready,” she says.

Dani Daniels is neither a tattooed, edgy bruiser nor a tiny but hyperinflated fireplug of a porn star. Instead she belongs to that elegant Tori Black school of leggy, smoky starlets who are ready for anything (and by that I mean she’s not Girls Only anymore).

On the cover of “Dare” she is naked in the most provocative way. It’s just a gorgeous picture. And she reflects that elusive quality of accessible but tempting, shy but bold.

“I always wanted to limit myself to one man and many women,” says the (then) 22-year-old Daniels in her pre-sex interview (in which she clutches an oversized cup of coffee just like the tampon ads of eld), “because that is the real me.”

And today she emerges from that cocoon.

I’m not sure why there is such a premium placed on someone’s first gangbang, or anal, or interracial, or even a former Girls Only performer’s first on-screen dude. Even if there’s a fairly good chance that—in the case of gangbangs, for example—the performer has never done this sort of thing offscreen, what’s the big deal?

Yet “Dare” is thoughtfully paced in such a way that we allow ourselves for a moment to suspend our disbelief and think that maybe this guy will be her real first.

“I usually wake up thinking, ‘Who am I going to fuck today?'” says Daniels. “But today it’s ‘Who’s going to fuck me?'”

Daniels drew up a list, and is “So Ready.”

The first one in (and, as it turns out, the fourth) is Manuel Ferrara: Lucky Bastard.

There are no fireworks when he finally enters, but it’s fun just the same. Then there is an “Eyes Wide Shut-style scene with James Deen and Mick Blue, in which Daniels is tenderly, savagely spit-roasted, then a breather in which she returns to the capable thighs of Sinn Sage, a threesome with Ferrara and Karlie Montana, and finally a knockout scene with Erik Everhard, who seems to be Porn’s Designated Closer.

If we liked Daniels in every scene so far, we’re frankly amazed by her (and Everhard) in the final one, because she cries in that great releasing way. We see tears every now and then in porn, and it’s more than often disturbing, but these tears are awesome.

As a document of Dani Daniels being 22 and beautiful in Los Angeles, I hope she can look at this movie in fifty years and say, “Yup: this is exactly how I felt.”

Whether she’s naked on a rooftop overlooking downtown Los Angeles or naked on a deck overlooking the Pacific Ocean, or fully clothed with her dog, Dani Daniels in “DARE” is the rare performer you really root for.