Working Girls

Working Girls is a day-in-the-life drama set in a high-end Manhattan brothel. The film follows a group of women who work there as they handle clients, manage the demands of the house and deal with one another over the course of a single shift. Molly, the central figure, is a college graduate and photographer who takes the job to fund her own business, and the story is told largely from her perspective. The house has its own routines and hierarchies, with a madam overseeing the schedule, and the film stays close to the ordinary texture of the work rather than turning it into a crime story.

Lizzie Borden directed the film, her second feature after Born in Flames, and wrote the screenplay with Sandra Kay. Borden also produced with Andi Gladstone. Ellen McElduff plays Lucy, with Amanda Goodwin, Marusia Zach, Janne Peters, Helen Nicholas and Louise Smith among a credited cast of thirty-one. The production drew support from the New York State Council on the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Jerome Foundation and Alternate Current.

Released in February 1987, the film runs 93 minutes and took in about 2 million dollars worldwide. On IMDb it holds a 6.8 rating from around 2,500 votes, while on TMDB it sits at 6.2 from a much smaller base of 49 votes.