Male movie directors have long had a slightly dubious fascination with female prostitutes, but thankfully this contemporary Polish drama does not pander to tired screen stereotypes about sex workers. The feature-length debut of 32-year-old writer/director Tomasz Wasilewski is an artfully shot character study that reveals its psychological depths with guarded caution.
Statuesque, intense, 40-year-old beauty Edyta (Katarzyna Herman) has a neat scam going. Posing as a call girl on the internet, she meets up with wealthy men in their homes, knocks them out with sleeping pills, then steals cash or sometimes just a free bed for the night.
Edyta’s glacially aloof surface poise begins to crack when an encounter with artist Patryk (Tomek Tyndyk) ends badly. After an initial period of distrust, these two misfits form an uneasy bond that blossoms into a budding romance.
Despite his relative youth and inexperience, Wasilewski shows an impressive flair for tightly controlled emotional tone and striking geometric compositions. Eventually the characters and their motives are shaded in, and the film’s visual grammar becomes more conventional, but it remains an eye-pleasing experience throughout.
Stephen Dalton, The Hollywood Reporter