Should prostitution be legalized? Decriminalized? Should prostitutes be afforded legal status but johns criminalized? This film doesn't take a position. It gives thoughtful discussion showing different views and goes on location to Canada, New Zealand and Sweden, countries which revamped prostitution laws in fairly recent years.
A central character, the lawyer responsible for forcing Canada to legalize prostitution, looks like a nice enough guy. He argues that some people really do want to be sex workers (true!) and they should be allowed to do that despite what anyone thinks. But in the end, he seems like a self-satisfied blowhard and somewhat shallow, blustery showoff with no deeply thought out solutions for how to help protect vulnerable women from violence and exploitation.
I wished he could have sat down directly with the prohibition movement people after they toured Sweden because at least one of his theories (that it's human nature and raw impulse and therefore unavoidable) seemed profoundly rebutted by Swedes defending the Swedish model of criminalizing the john but protecting and supporting the prostitute.
If you watch this film, have the grit to finish it all the way through to the end. Don't just stop midway because the subject matter seems salacious, unpalatable or embarrassing. This is a good topic for dialogue and this film is a good way to jump-start the dialogue. Nothing dark and sinister is glossed over in this film. It does not trivialize or argue for prostitution. It tries to get at real truth. One is left thinking, a very good way to be left sometimes when issues are complex. I wish it had been longer and there'd been more interaction among the different people involved.
