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Working Girls (1986)

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Movie Info & Cast

Synopsis

Sex work is portrayed with radical nonjudgment in Lizzie Borden's immersive, richly detailed look at the rhythms and rituals of society's most stigmatized profession. Inspired by the experiences of the sex workers Borden met while making her underground feminist landmark Born in Flames, Working Girls reveals the textures of a day in the life of Molly, a photographer working part-time in a Manhattan brothel, as she juggles a steady stream of clients, balances relationships with her coworkers with the demands of an ambitious madam, and above all fights to maintain her sense of self in a business in which the line between the personal and the professional is all too easily blurred. In viewing prostitution through the lens of labor, Borden boldly desensationalizes the subject, offering an empathetic, humanizing, often humorous depiction of women for whom this work is just another day at the office.

Cast

  • Louise Smith
  • Deborah Banks
  • Liz Caldwell
  • Marusia Zach
  • Amanda Goodwin
  • Boomer Tibbs
  • Eli Hasson
  • Tony Whiting
  • Richard M. Davidson
  • Ellen McElduff

Atom User Reviews

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Metacritic

75

Working Girls is not a slick and dramatic movie. There are moments that seem forced and amateurish, and the over-all structure of the story is fairly predictable. What the movie does have, though, is the feeling of real life being observed accurately.

Metacritic review by Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Chicago Sun-Times
50

While she demystifies prostitution, managing at times to make it seem as boring as it must often be, Borden (and cowriter Sandra Kay) make the characters almost too sympathetic.

Metacritic review by Richard Harrington
Richard Harrington
Washington Post