Below Her Mouth

🎥 Synopsis

In Below Her Mouth, Jasmine, a successful fashion editor, appears to be living a perfect life with her fiancé. All of that changes when she meets Dallas, a confident and emotionally complex roofer.

What starts as a spontaneous encounter develops into a whirlwind of confusion and passion. Jasmine, battling with her identity crisis and societal expectations, is pulled deeper into Dallas’s orbit where lust masquerades as liberation and every caress strips away another layer of her carefully cultivated world.

The love affair is fervent, obsessive, and all-consuming. Yet, underneath it all is a chilling concern: Can love that was kindled from a passionate blaze be extinguished when the smoke clears?

🌟 Lead Performances

Erika Linder as Dallas – Her performance of Dallas is captivating, emotionally raw, and unfathomably sultry—like Dallas herself. Linder’s confidence and vulnerability is intoxicating. She portrays freedom—and the ensuing pandemonium beautifully.

Natalie Krill as Jasmine– Conveys the still disintegration of a woman caught between the safety of her past and acute intoxication of the unknown. Captivating, sensual, and yet achingly tender, her performance is profoundly human.

The pair’s chemistry is astonishing. Their connection makes every scene shockingly sensual—intimate, volatile, and ready to spark.

🖋️ Themes and Tone

Below Her Mouth has important themes of:

Sexual awakening and identity: Jasmine’s journey isn’t about labels—it’s about truth and risk.
Desire as rebellion: desire deconstructs everything that society expects and shows what happens when you let go.
Love vs. escape: Is Dallas a soulmate or a flame that burns too fast?

The overwhelming electric feel of the film is subtle, sultry and erotic in nature while centering on love and sensuality from a woman’s perspective.

🎞️ Style and Cinematography

The film is solely shot and directed by an all-female cast. April Mullen captures ultra-concentrated visuals further amplified by the stillness of the camera. Every shot focuses on single elements like skin, breath, glances, and silence.

The use of natural light makes the feeling of intimacy even more palpable. Uncut and immersive, the sex scenes bring forth tears to feel over folded emotion and vulnerability instead of shock value.

Dusk cityscapes coupled with muted interiors highlight the feeling of drowning within desire, a central tension of the film, alongside water imagery.

🔥 Controversy and Reception

Critics have differing opinions towards Below her Mouth’s:

Praise: unapologetic and bold fuel portrayal of lesbian intimacy which was done without restraint.
Criticism: lack of depth when it came to dialogue and development of the characters claiming it to be style over substance.

No less the film remains a landmark of queer cinema for its explicit, female-centric depiction of same sex love and sexual exploration.

⭐ Critical Acceptance

Lauded for:

Daring cinematography and the unique female gaze to erotic filmmaking.

Transports that show longing and confusion with few words.

A visceral unapologectically queer love.

Crit02:

Lack of depth in narrative structure and standard romantic tropes.

Dialogue that at times feels too sparse.

Regardless, for those in search of tales of queer love, raw and honest seeks lay heat within the embrace of queer vulnerability.

📝 Conclusion

Below Her Mouth is much less a film to dissect intellectually and rather one to immerse intimately and viscerally in feel to the women. It’s about two women, two crashes bound by the unarticulated ache of what’s safe and what truly sets you liberate.

This is not a narrative of getting lost in the arms of another.

It is one of coming out of silence.