dir. Coky Giedroyc
st. Kelly MacDonald, James Bolam, Hans Mathieson
running time: 97mins

A low-budget, debut feature, Stella Does Tricks is bleak and unjudgemental, in its depiction of prostitution and streetlife. Clever scripting allows the young cast to avoid being one-dimensional victims of abuse. These kids are streetwise but self-destructive, which is perhaps social commentary in itself. Finding small doses of freedom in drugs, sex, camaraderie, they dream about the future, coping with the present by ignoring its alarming similarity to the past. Twenty year-old MacDonald (Diane in Trainspotting) gives Stella a confused mix of determination and vulnerability. Her attempt to escape a dehumanising life of protitution and homelessness buffets between both terror and tenderness. Sexually abused by her father as a child, Stella is a runaway who has been taken under the wing of Glaswegian pimp Mr. Peters (Bolam). Mr. Peters is another complex character, his relationship with Stella disturbingly paternal and brutal. His combination of kindness and violence proves highly manipulative, and Stella finds it difficult to identify him as her oppressor.

Stella's life is one of repressed anger, sometimes turned inward in frustration. Her struggle to survive on her own terms, is compromised by the demands of Mr. Peters, and her heroin-addicted boyfriend Eddie. Deciding to make a clean break, Stella is gang-raped by Mr. Peter's heavies as an example to the other girls, even as he cries and holds her hand. Contradictory images such as these escape simplification and imbue the movie with a disturbing intensity.

Inspired by the real-life stories told to the filmmakers during their BBC documentary series on homelessness, Stella Does Tricks is appropriately confronting and unapolegetic. Handheld and close-up shots apply a documentary style of realism, which is reinforced by the use of humour and tragedy to undermine narrative simplification. Hard-working but unable to escape her past, Stella's strength as a character confuses the tragic elements of the story. The audience is lured into strong identification with her, this emotional investment begging for a happy-ending which is repeatedly hinted at, then denied. Hope dies as Eddie prostitutes her to his landlord in return for drugs, and Stella is plagued by the realisation that although she has changed, her life has not. Unable to see her future but for her past, Stella is a challenging character for a cinema culture which rarely sees women portrayed with such truth.

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