A film with a name like Adored: Diary of a Porn Star is either most likely a serious examination of the porn industry, or a cheap excuse for softcore (or possibly harder) pornography, something along the lines of late night Skinemax. Surprisingly, Adored is neither. Instead, it is a cliche-ridden, melodramatic and overly pretentious movie by first time writer/director Marco Filiberti, who, golly gee, also happens to be the star. In this sense Adored feels like a vanity project. Filiberti is glorifying his own, oiled up, tanned, and buff body. The camera lingers on almost all of his curves, and he even winks at the viewer (probably saying "you are a sucker for watching my film"). The translated Italian title of Adored is Little More Than a Year Ago, and it is also going by the name Diary of a Male Porn Star. The omission of the word "male" is probably to lure unsuspecting pervs out to get a quick, legitimate thrill (oh, will they be surprised).

The sex is surprisingly tame, if not overly fake. But that's beside the point. Filiberti wanted to make a story about people, in particular two estranged brothers, one of whom just happens to be Riki Kandinsky (Filiberti), one of the hottest porn stars around. Adored is structured as a flashback within a flashback. "Present" for the film is the year 2014. It flashes back to one year after the actual events in the film. If it sounds confusing, don't worry, since it's really not worth it. Riki and his brother Federico (Urbano Barberini, Borderline, Le Complici) catch up at the funeral of their father, a wealthy businessman. Federico has no idea what Riki (still known to him as Ricardo) does for a living, and everybody is shocked at Riki's hair, sculpted eyebrows, and mascara. Federico is just glad to see Riki again. As expected, Riki is less than forthcoming about his profession, which leads Federico to believe he is on drugs.

Federico follows Riki back to the city, where he wants to reconnect with his brother. Eventually, Riki tells Federico what he does, and as expected, it is a huge shock. Then things turn very uneven. Federico veers from exaggerated shock to acceptance (after all, they are brothers) and back. Their time together opens both their eyes. Federico realizes that he's been a little too uptight, while Riki realizes that he longs for some deeper sense of companionship. And it helps that Federico's wife is a one-dimensional bitch and that a young orphaned boy (Edoardo Minciotti, Happiness Costs Nothing) that he want s to adopt. But how can a male porn star adopt a kid, especially once the child's grandparents discover the secret? Once this story kicks into high gear, Adored really begins to lose it, favoring cheap storytelling over characterization.

Filiberti and his co-stars are not much as actors. But then his script is essentially one big soap opera, so nobody is given anything substantial to work with. The supporting characters are all quick blips that flash across the screen. Everything is extremely predictable and utterly cheesy in its actualization. One can tell that Filiberti is trying to add depth to his characters, but unfortunately he is never able to capably express it in his script of his characters. His approach is just too simplistic to have any effect. One a random note, one of Luna, one of Riki's friends is played by Rosalinda Celetano (The Order), who also played Satan in The Passion of the Christ. She looked very weird there, and looks very weird in a different way here.