As Claire Dolan, Katrin Cartlidge is neither stunning nor glamorized. She looks like a rather attractive but otherwise ordinary, thirtyish woman. The whole film is like that. Seeing it is less like watching a film than like watching the comings and goings in a Safeway. Cartlidge, a hooker, is tall, graceful, elegant even. She has thin lips and dark, staring eyes. Her features, her voice, her entire demeanor, is that of a firm algebra teacher, maybe covering up a psychosis. If she lost some weight it wouldn't take much to turn her into one of Moses Soyer's dark-eyed haunted wraiths.When the endoskeleton is revealed, the narrative looks more familiar. A lonely woman with no friends is desolate after her mother's death. She has no family to turn to. Her cousin in Newark is indifferent. She's exploited by all the men she meets except one, D'Onofrio. We've seen the D'Onofrio character before. He's the guy who succors her for a while and is in and out of her life. Sam Shepherd did it more obviously in "Frances." Cartlidge wants to have a child by D'Onofrio, build a home.But he's hesitant. We're not sure exactly why. Maybe it's because she's humped a thousand men before him. Maybe it's because when she orgasms there's no way of telling. Possibly it's because D'Onofrio can visualize what marriage to her would look like. She'd love him to death but she wouldn't make a good conversationalist, she has no wit, and she's demanding. He might spend the rest of his life driving a cab, hanging around, suffering from a bottomless boredom and watching her dote on the kid. If he thought about it, he might even wonder if he's been instrumentalized. After all, pregnancy may be one way to get out of the life.D'Onofrio himself is a beefy, gnarled presence with a high, gentle voice, but my God, he needs a shave an a haircut. He looks like a bum, but then living in Newark can do that to you. It certainly did for my old man. But D'Onofrio doesn't turn out to be very important anyway. After he impregnates her, he and Cartlidge say they love one another but she decides to cut herself off from her previous life and find a legitimate job in Seattle and she winds up glowing with happiness when she sees the fetus on ultrasound.The acting is okay, although it's all so low key that nobody gets to be very galvanic. Colm Meaney comes off best in some ways. All the characters are complex but his is the most difficult to unravel, not to mention that that pinched face is unforgettable. Other comments have ragged the director, Kerrigan, but he struck me as having done a fine job, even if a little artsy. He might do better if he lightened up a bit. After watching this, I had to bleed myself with leeches to relieve the depression.

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

i usually am not the sentimental type but when i heard of katrin cartlidges death, believe me, i burst into tears. we lost one of the most charismatic, talented and intense actresses ever and this film proves it. her enigmatic, scene-stealing presence can´t be matched. this film is as haunting as kerrigans debut CLEAN SHAVEN. that´s all there is to say about this original piece of work. and i can´t wait to see kerrigan´s new film IN GOD´S HANDS which is still in the making.

I attended a screening of this film with great anticipation. I liked "Clean Shaven," an earlier effort from this director. This is a story that has been done before - a man falling in love with a whore. You root for that man, but he is cheated by the whore. I guess I was most disappointed in how impersonal it was, kind of like Punch Drunk Love. The title character kept you wondering what she was going to do and I guess she broke my heart. You never really got the sense that Claire liked sex and liked being a whore. I thought she couldn't stand being one and just wanted to pay off her family debt. She ends up running away, presumably to be a whore somewhere with a child? I dunno, I was disappointed.