Walk All Over Me

Directed by: Robert Cuffley  

Starring:  Leelee Sobieski

Tricia Helfer

Lothaire Bluteau

Jacob Tierney

Ross McMillan

Michael Eklund 

Released: 2007 

 

Language: English 

Length: 99 minutes

 

 

 

Female Domination in advertising sells, be it a magazine ad trying to sell shoes or be it a movie poster trying to sell more tickets. Take the 2007 Canadian independent film "Walk All Over Me". The movie poster shows two attractive women dressed as Dominatrices. Under the movie title are the words “Love Latex Larceny”.  
 

Then there is the movie trailer which is full of Femdom and S&M images, showing the two female stars in a variety of Dominant wear. And there is the back of the DVD box which features a picture of Tricia Helfer in a Dominatrix outfit with the words “A dangerously Deviant Ride that will leave you begging for more.” Notice the words ‘Deviant’ and ‘begging’. It also mentions that the film stars Tricia Helfer as the “ultimate S&M Mistress”. 
 

So what is one to surmise when viewing the poster, watching the trailer and reading the back of the DVD box? Those of us interested in Female Domination will be tempted to watch this film. I know I was, and I did, and while I enjoyed portions of this movie, it still bothers me when movies use Female Domination to lure in an audience yet refuses to deliver on the promise of the movie’s eroticism that was portrayed in the slick marketing campaign.
 

 

I watched the movie twice, the second viewing with the commentary of director Robert Cuffley and the two female stars. Cuffley basically admits that he used the Dominatrix theme for marketing because he knew it would gain him a larger audience. And both women commented on how most of their interviews about the film revolved around questions regarding S&M and how they prepared for their roles. Even the critics and journalists were lured in by the promise of a ‘Deviant Ride’. 
 

"Walk All Over Me" was a cute movie that had its moments but it was not a ‘Deviant Ride’ and it did not leave me ‘begging for more.’ In "Walk All Over Me", Leelee Sobieski plays Alberta, a clumsy young female who sorely lacks confidence. She escapes a boring job and an abusive relationship in a small town and flees to Vancouver where she looks up the only person she knows, her childhood babysitter, Celene (Tricia Helfer). 
 

Celene is a strong, confident woman who lives in a nice house decorated with expensive furnishings. Although Celene genuinely cares for Alberta, her arrival is greeted with muted enthusiasm because Celene knows that trouble usually follows Alberta wherever she goes. Alberta showing up at her door is not the best timing for Celene since she is focused on her career and her goals. And what are her goals? She wants to be an actress and she is only eighteen months away from having enough money where she can move to Hollywood and hire an agent. And what is her current career? Celene is a Dominatrix. 
 

"Walk All Over Me" is an independent film written and directed by Robert Cuffley. His idea for the script was to throw an innocent, less-than-worldly character, into the business of S&M. Cuffley thought there would be dramatic and comedic possibilities to this unique spin on the ‘small town girl goes to the big city’ plot. Cuffley wanted to see the reaction of this character to the kinky world of S&M. So there are quite a few lingering shots of Alberta's face, where the director dwells on her small town reaction to what she's witnessing.

 

 

 

Her first big reaction is when she spots Spencer (Ross McMillan) scrubbing Celene’s floor while wearing only a leather body harness. Celene comes out of her bedroom wearing a skin-tight latex outfit, complete with thigh-high boots, and she explains to Alberta that Spencer is her loyal slave and he cleans her house every Friday. Spencer bows down and kisses Celene’s boots as she throws on her coat in route to see a client.  
 

She later explains to Alberta, while Alberta assists her by lacing up the gorgeous corset Celene is wearing in preparation to see another client, that she makes $300 an hour and that dominating men is a form of acting. “If you act as if you’re in charge, men will submit to you.” 
 

Celene is goal oriented but Alberta is aimlessly floating through life. She has no plans beyond getting a job, which she finds at a local supermarket. She worked in a country grocery store in her home town so working in a supermarket is about as big as she can dream at this point in her life. 
 

Yet she views Celene as her mentor and she is fascinated by her line of work. When Celene is not home, Alberta tries on Celene’s sexy SS officer outfit and a pair of high-heel shoes. Alberta’s awkwardness tells us that she is not accustomed to walking in high-heel shoes. However, she feels sexy in the Dominatrix outfit and she playfully pretends she is dominating a man, barking out orders and practicing with a whip, accidentally hitting herself in the leg (naturally this scene made the trailer).

 

 

 

In walks Spencer and Alberta becomes startled. She spills the cup of coffee she is holding all over the expensive SS officer outfit. Spencer makes matters worse by wrongly advising her to clean the uniform with the contents of the orange bottle in the laundry room, which happens to contain bleach.  
 

Celene comes home and verbally chastises Alberta, telling her that the outfit cost $800. Celene takes out her frustration by slapping Spencer in the face. Spencer stands outside the laundry room and listens to the two women arguing much the way a child listens in on parents fighting. Alberta emerges and in her first dominant act, she too slaps Spencer.  
 

“Walk All Over Me” is meant to be a quirky comedy and there are some funny moments in the film. It also has some very sweet moments as we see Alberta blossoming into a confident woman. Alberta wants to earn some fast money so she can pay Celene back for the outfit. She gets the idea that perhaps she could dominate one of her clients and earn $300 per hour. Celene has an unusual method of screening clients. She makes them videotape themselves describing their D&S interests. Alberta watches the videos when she is alone, covering her face from embarrassment at some of the strange fetishes and requests from Celene’s would-be clients. Finally she sees the tape of Paul. He is a cute, young man who seems to be normal and well-grounded. Alberta pretends to be Celene and calls up Paul. His first assignment as her slave is to meet her at the food court in the mall. 
 

There is charming scene where the innocent and naïve Alberta meets Paul at the mall. She is very nervous but she grows in confidence as she orders Paul to get her a drink and later some ice crème. She even buckles a collar around Paul’s neck as he heads off to the ice crème counter. When he returns with her treat, Alberta scolds Paul for disobeying her by not getting double the chocolate as a topping. Whilst Paul tries to explain that they were going to double the cost for the extra topping, Alberta gets the hang of being a Dom as she doesn’t want to hear excuses and she orders Paul to go and rectify his mistake.  
 

Paul offers to pay Alberta an additional $300 if she would accompany him home and dominate him at his house. Alberta agrees and once inside his home, Paul kneels and kisses Alberta’s shoes and works his way up her legs just above her knees. The clumsy Alberta accidentally stumbles and knees Paul, which he obviously doesn’t mind. As a side note, the only kissing in the entire movie is when Spencer kisses Celene’s boots and Paul kisses Alberta’s shoes. There is no kissing on the lips and no sex whatsoever in the film.  
 

Up to this point, I was enamored with “Walk All Over Me” but then Cuffley takes the script into another direction. I liked the ‘Love’ and ‘Latex’ parts but I could have done without the ‘Larceny’ and sadly the ‘Larceny’ dominates too much of the film.

 

 

 

While Alberta is dominating Paul by attaching a leash to his collar and walking him around the house like a dog, they are interrupted when three criminals break into the house. The first is Rene, the owner of a Montreal club. He claims that Paul stole $500,000 from him. When Paul refuses to disclose where he hid the money, Rene brings in Isaac and Aaron, two thugs. While they beat up Paul, Alberta grabs Paul’s duffle bad which contains $20,000 (money he claimed he won at a casino), she steals Paul’s car and heads back to Celene’s house. 
 

The rest of the movie is about the money. Rene tracks down Alberta and he assaults her in Celene’s house. Celene comes home from a session, dressed in a police outfit, and the tall, dominant female beats the crap out of the short and slightly built Rene. The girls handcuff him and tie him up with bondage tape. They take him to Spencer’s house, which of course has a room full of S&M equipment, and they keep Rene a prisoner there while the girls hatch a plot to rescue Paul from Isaac and Aaron, and get their hands on the rest of the $500,000.  
 

Celene needs the money because she admits to Alberta that she does not own the nice house with the beautiful furnishings. It belongs to one of her clients and she is living there rent free for a year while he is away. Celene needs to replace all the furnishings that were broken when she beat up Rene. 
 

Seeing that this is a quirky comedy, although the film was also advertised as a comedy/thriller, I’ll admit there were some humorous scenes that involved Isaac and Aaron in-fighting, Rene trying to escape his captivity, and Spencer joining the girls in their outrageous plan. However, what got lost was the initial charm of an innocent, small town girl being thrust into the worlds of professional domination and S&M. I feel that Cuffley made a big mistake when he introduced the money and the criminals into the plot. It kind of reminded me of the mistake the makers of “Exit to Eden” made when they meandered away from the original plot in the book and added a comedic plot to the movie that involved diamond thieves. The difference is that society has come a long ways since 1995 in its acceptance of Female Domination and S&M as alternative lifestyles.  
 

I will say that Cuffley succeeds in showing Alberta gaining in confidence as a woman, as she ultimately saves the day. In fact, we see some cracks in Celene’s confident persona as her plan to get the money and rescue Paul fails. Alberta, with the help of Spencer, must rescue both Paul and Celene, and she proves to be up to the task.  
 

Toward the end of the film there is a scene where Alberta is back at the food court in the mall, this time wearing Celene’s sexy SS uniform (the coffee stain covered with a patch) and a pair of thigh-high boots. She encounters the macho Isaac and there is a psychological exchange between the dominant male and the new dominant female, Alberta. The dominant female outsmarts the male and there is a satisfaction watching the statuesque Alberta walking confidently in her boots near the end of the film, securing a date with Paul and gaining the respect of her mentor Celene.  
 

All of this could have been achieved without the “larceny” plot. I believe writer and director Robert Cuffley steered the film in the wrong direction by introducing the plot of stolen money and the three criminals searching for the money. Had he kept to the initial premise of a naïve, small town girl becoming a confident woman through exploring the Femdom lifestyle via her friend the Dominatrix, the movie would have been a homerun. Instead, it is a lazy fly ball well short of the warning track.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

Note: If you rent the DVD, you might want to watch the film twice, the second viewing with the commentary of Cuffley and the two female stars (not that the movie is worth over 3 hours of your life but if you have the time you might enjoy it).  

Sobieski mentions that she saw a news report that came to the conclusion that children who are spanked are more likely to seek out S&M encounters as adults. Her response to this was to remark that if she ever has children, she might be inclined to spank them knowing it could lead to them having a more interesting sex life. While I don’t agree with the analysis of the cause of S&M desires, I really liked Sobieski’s answer. Both women come across as intelligent, fun-loving females and there is no doubt in my mind that if they wanted to choose a different profession, they both could be successful Dominatrices.