Every four seconds, a romance novel published by Harlequin or its British counterpart, Mills & Boon, is sold somewhere in the world. Fans from different countries have one thing in common: they can't get enough of the "guilty pleasures" of reading these novels and escaping to another world that excites them with cheap thrills.
Director Julie Moggan catches the global dimensions of romance novels with portraits of readers in Japan (Hiroko who gets so swept away by the elegant moves of lovers that she begins taking dancing lessons), India (Shumita glows all over recounting the adventure of life with the husband who treated her badly), and Britain (Shirley yearns for more passion and drama than she gets from her husband).
The two men profiled are from different arenas of romance fiction. Roger has written more than 50 novels under the pen name of Gill Sanderson. He reveals where he picks up bits and pieces of data to use in his books. Of all the people on Guilty Pleasures he is the one who provides the most information about this popular genre of literature.
The American model Stephen Muzzonigro has done a large number of steamy covers for romance novels and actually looks like the archetypal hunk that women want to read about in these books. Although he yearns for a "soulmate," Stephen — like Roger — comes across as a lonely man.
Guilty Pleasures does not judge the value or worth of Harlequin books or their readers but one cannot come away from this documentary without a tinge of sadness for all the lonely women who need to escape their passionless marriages into a realm of make-believe sex.
