SnoopyStyle Claire Dolan (Katrin Cartlidge) is a Manhattan call girl. She is still in debt to her pimp Roland Cain (Colm Meaney) who has been paying for her mother's care. After her mother dies, she runs off to Newark to her cousin without telling Cain. She starts working at a hair salon and dating cab driver Elton Garrett (Vincent D'Onofrio). She wants to start a family but then Cain finds her. He takes her back to Manhattan to work off her debt.Katrin Cartlidge delivers a powerful quiet performance. Colm Meaney is able to bring a threatening menace. Writer/director Lodge Kerrigan brings a quiet desperation to this movie. The quietness is non-traditional but effective for what this movie is about.

mart-burton It is an intriguing film, told from a woman's point of view. This film allows the viewer time to think which is a big thing. It allowed me to become involved. It is well directed and has unpretentious camera work. Claire is a sensitive woman trying to escape her present, and her past. The action is paced well and does not push a lot of dialog onto us. Like the main character, Claire, the characters draw their reactions to situations at the same time as we do, giving us time to draw our own conclusions. Vincent D'Onofrio plays Elton, the caring lover, discovering the unusual woman. I thought he played his character with great depth, and I really like finding his old films before TV. The Irish pimp, Cain, played by Colm Mearey played his role straight enough. The film shows the world of high-class prostitution with sex scenes that are never voyeuristic but tasteful, again from Claire's viewpoint. And there are nice locations like Manhattan as well as gritty ones.

artisticengineer This is a profound movie; it is quite deep in it's implications, certainly not a movie that you would go to for a date as it really does not leave one feeling good. Many people have discussed the psychological overtones to this film, and all the comments do touch on something important though they really miss one point. The point they miss is that this movie has a paradox in it that is as much of a plot buster as the watch in "Somewhere in Time" (read the "goofs" section for that movie if you are unfamiliar with what I just mentioned). The paradox really comes down to the statement by the character Roland Cain that Claire is just a whore and will always be a whore. Incidentally, Colm Meaney does NOT play a pimp like a true pimp. True pimps are some of the ugliest (personality wise I mean) people you could ever imagine and most are worse than you could even imagine. His character, as a pimp, is actually quite lovable- as pimps go. In that profession his pimp would be considered a "choir boy". That is certainly one very unrealistic aspect of the movie. Anyway, the movie portrays Claire making a living as a prostitute in order to pay off a monetary debt that she and her mother owes the pimp for bringing them from Ireland to the United States (and presumably for the nursing home costs for her mother). After her mother's death early on in the movie (One observation - IMHO Karin Cartlidge did not act the scenes concerning the mother's death with the depth of emotion that one would expect from such a great actress. This may be due to the fact that, in real life, she never did go through the trauma of burying her mother) Claire decides to sneak away from her pimp and start an honest life elsewhere. The movie then shows that the pimp tracks her down and forces her back to the lifestyle of prostitution. That is the paradox of the movie. Obviously, contrary to the pimps opinion, she is not a "born whore" - she was driven to desperate measures by desperate circumstances; basically to take care of her mother. When Claire no longer had that obligation then she did try to leave. The film really shows no reason why she could not have remained clear of the clutches of her pimp. Even though he found her she only had to call the police and that would have ended everything. It may seem trite, but police do intervene in that situation to save the "dasmal in distress". They love to. Cops I know (and most cops are of this mindset) will tolerate prostitution. Once in a while, for show, a prostitute will be arrested and spend a night in jail but other than that it is pretty much a "live and let live" mindset with the police concerning prostitutes. But, the police have only scorn for pimps. They hate them, and will not waste an opportunity to put them in a state pen. The pimps know that, so they generally will not stalk the girl and force her back into the lifestyle if she does break away.The film has an interesting look, but it would be highly unlikely to occur in real life. The taxi driver, Elton Garrett, is a representation of people of that sort who do, in reality, have a hard time in life. Such people do exist and their existence is, at times, bleak.

William J. Fickling I saw this atrocious film recently on the Sundance channel and unfortunately didn't follow my first instinct, which was to turn it off after 10 minutes. Instead, I watched it through to the end. Big mistake; the boredom only intensifies.The film begins, as background while the credits are running, with silent views of modern glass and steel Manhattan high rises; although this lasts only a few minutes, it seems interminable. Shots of the high rises reappear throughout the film. I guess the director was trying to say something about the soullessness of modern urban alienation. This is the film's first cliche; Antonioni and other European directors were using the same images to say the same thing 35 years earlier. The next cliche, which I'm sure the director intended to be revelatory, is that hookers lie to their johns, tell them they're special, etc., because it's good business. The last film I remember doing this is Klute in 1971. Oh yes, another original insight: pimps can be mean and vicious.With the exception of Vincent D'Onofrio, the acting is uniformly atrocious. Katrin Cartlidge has to be the most wooden, inexpressive actress in recent memory. She makes Clint Eastwood in his spaghetti westerns look expressive. Moreover, throughout the film her johns repeatedly refer to her as beautiful, when actually Cartlidge is quite plain. This appears to be a low budget film. Perhaps they couldn't afford a truly beautiful actress for the part. Equally likely, no self-respecting actress would touch such a dud. Colm Meaney was equally wooden, but then again he wasn't given a whole lot to do. Vincent D'Onofrio at least brought some life to his character. One redeeming feature: if you're a dirty old man like me, at least the tedium is punctuated by frequent glimpses of Cartlidge's rather lovely breasts.All in all, one to miss. 4/10