Working Girls (1986) Review

Title: Working Girls 

Year: 1986
Director: Lizzie Borden
Country: US
Language: English

Winner of a Special Jury Prize at the 1987 Sundance Film Festival, Working Girls (1986) gives us a unique perspective on the world's oldest profession. Far from the typical Hollywood picture, this film gives us a humanist perspective that allows us to empathize with a group that is constantly villainized in mass media. 

The film is a day in the life of Molly (Louise Smith), a queer New Yorker who makes rent taking shifts at a private brothel. 

Working Girls (1986) is funny, dramatic, dark and honest. It is an intimate look at prostitution; director Lizzie Borden calls it "narrative fiction" as it has a cinema-verite style of documentary feel despite being fiction. It does not glamourize prostitution - nor does it serve as a warning against it- as Borden shows life from the workers' perspective. 

Borden's Working Girls strips prostitution of its social stigma and makes it feel similar to a monotonous office job. It's a proactive take that dismantles typical gender politics and offers a new perspective on sexuality. The directing and screenwriting stand-out; I particularly like the slow-burn character development of Molly. 

Working Girls is a breezy film that had me captivated throughout its run-time. It was quite bold in its subject matter; I'm surprised this film was able to be made in the late eighties considering how conservative that decade is known to have been.