It is an excruciating film to sit trough. It is an 1h20 minute journey into the ugliest, dirtiest and crassest lower rungs of society. It stands in the same category as Taxi Driver and 8mm, of movies that make you want to take a warm shower. And even by those standards it feels even particularly unsettling and miserable.
The interesting thing about it is that it is an unabashed documentary on the life of a contemporary prostitute. And what is original is that it is told from the inside, from the perspective of a woman. That is in itself unique enough to be noteworthy.
Unfortunately the whole exercise is brought down by two things: the absence of plot and the sub-par acting.
The movie presents Liz, a prostitute who goes on to tell the story of her life in the form of flashbacks. All the while she is roaming the streets of a big city, trying to turns tricks and looking to evade her sociopathic pimp. All that sound good on paper, but there isn't anything tying all the small vignettes of Liz's life together. You get a collection of anecdotes and illuminating titbits on the life of a lady of the evening but there is no over-arching theme. The movie never formulates an opinion on the oldest profession. And it never offers a judgment of whether what it shows is good or bad. Even the protagonist's views on the matter are ambivalent. You're left empathising with her without necessarily rooting for her. And vice versa.
There is one moment when the movie seems to build up to something worthwhile. Liz meets and befriends Katie, she an outsider to that world and a shaft of light in Liz's life. Up to that point the film's characters were all sorts of lowlifes and parasites. In contrast, Katie is an educated woman who is able to see Liz's miserable lifestyle for what it is, and despite that she treats her with kindness and compassion. For a small moment, it looks like she is going to be a bridge to a semblance of normalcy for Liz. And frankly, I though the film would totally embark and commit to a redemptive lesbian-romance story arc. That would have been brilliant. Regrettably, it was not mean to be. Katie's character only lasts for one full scene and then she disappears.
Overall, it is a sobering piece on aspects that we usually prefer not to think about but are all too present in our societies. Yet, the movie does not fully deliver because most of the acting is a bit too cartoonish. There is a part of courage in depicting these issues in the open and with an understated wit. Yet, it feels off. It might be more of a direction issue than an actors issue. The actors are good, but the subject matter needed to be treated with a bit more restraint. To quote Katie describing Liz's predicament and trying to talk some sense into her: it needs dignity.
The interesting thing about it is that it is an unabashed documentary on the life of a contemporary prostitute. And what is original is that it is told from the inside, from the perspective of a woman. That is in itself unique enough to be noteworthy.
Unfortunately the whole exercise is brought down by two things: the absence of plot and the sub-par acting.
The movie presents Liz, a prostitute who goes on to tell the story of her life in the form of flashbacks. All the while she is roaming the streets of a big city, trying to turns tricks and looking to evade her sociopathic pimp. All that sound good on paper, but there isn't anything tying all the small vignettes of Liz's life together. You get a collection of anecdotes and illuminating titbits on the life of a lady of the evening but there is no over-arching theme. The movie never formulates an opinion on the oldest profession. And it never offers a judgment of whether what it shows is good or bad. Even the protagonist's views on the matter are ambivalent. You're left empathising with her without necessarily rooting for her. And vice versa.
There is one moment when the movie seems to build up to something worthwhile. Liz meets and befriends Katie, she an outsider to that world and a shaft of light in Liz's life. Up to that point the film's characters were all sorts of lowlifes and parasites. In contrast, Katie is an educated woman who is able to see Liz's miserable lifestyle for what it is, and despite that she treats her with kindness and compassion. For a small moment, it looks like she is going to be a bridge to a semblance of normalcy for Liz. And frankly, I though the film would totally embark and commit to a redemptive lesbian-romance story arc. That would have been brilliant. Regrettably, it was not mean to be. Katie's character only lasts for one full scene and then she disappears.
Overall, it is a sobering piece on aspects that we usually prefer not to think about but are all too present in our societies. Yet, the movie does not fully deliver because most of the acting is a bit too cartoonish. There is a part of courage in depicting these issues in the open and with an understated wit. Yet, it feels off. It might be more of a direction issue than an actors issue. The actors are good, but the subject matter needed to be treated with a bit more restraint. To quote Katie describing Liz's predicament and trying to talk some sense into her: it needs dignity.