Sometimes, two wayward souls can sow the seeds of love in the unlikeliest of places.

As the eponymous pair of struggling housemates discover in writer/director Kevin Smith’s Zack and Miri Make a Porno (2008), economic hardship can instigate new ideas and facilitate the exploration of uncharted territories.

In an apocalyptic zeitgeist obsessed with money and sex, Zack (Seth Rogen) and Miri (Elizabeth Banks) endeavour to pay their dues and stay afloat by subscribing to the lowest common denominator: partaking in home-made, poorly crafted and excruciatingly awkward adult entertainment.

In so doing, however, they discover that what they were really looking for was right in front of them ⎯ veiled by familiarity and obscured by propriety. Love may be blind, but it is what corrects the shortness of our vision and helps us broaden our horizon that can be utterly surprising, strangely titillating and irreverently hilarious.

If there is a fine line between impassioned, binding intimacy and superficial, exploitative obscenity, then oddly beautiful things can emerge and grow when that line is crossed and blurred.

– Dr. Varga Hosseini