It may have been written and directed by US indie helmer Lodge Kerrigan (Clean, Shaven), but Claire Dolan feels like a European arthouse movie, right down to its ambiguous ending.
Katrin Cartlidge plays Claire, a callgirl in New York, who is attempting to pay off a debt to her ruthless pimp Roland (an excellent Meaney). But on starting a relationship with the sympathetic Elton (D'Onofrio), she tries to take control of her life... Kerrigan never glamorises the work of a prostitute: rather he captures the mundanities and joylessness of Claire's existence. This is a film less concerned with verbal exchanges than with surfaces and reflections and its trapped characters.
Unfortunately, the spareness of Kerrigan's directorial vision is likely to prove a stumbling block to many cinema-goers.
NOVERDICT
