Sex trafficking is not the easiest of topics to tackle when it comes to your choice of your latest movie choice, but Angie: Lost Girls is a film that absolutely demands to be seen.
After escaping from a sex trafficking ring, one teenage girl struggles to reconnect with herself and her family. To rescue her helpless friends, she must confront her own fears and help lead the police to her traffickers – at all costs.
Angie: Lost Girls is not an easy watch by any shape of the imagination. Director Julia Verdin pulls no punches from the outset, with a raw and constantly brutal view of the current world problem of sex trafficking. There are times when you are going to want to turn away, but you absolutely can’t. Because this isn’t a simple ‘movie with a message’, this is a film that details what is going on right now and it’s made to make you sit up and pay attention. Rambo: Last Blood tried to pull off a similar storyline, but unlike this, it was more a tool for Stallone’s final gorefest as you get to enjoy the bad guys die in most horrible ways possible. Lost Girls goes for the more realistic and Verdin is not about to give you the happy ending you might be hoping for. Reality bites hard.
The cast are incredible. With the material they are working with, they bring such incredible performances, none more so than Jane Widdop the central character of Angie/Angel who is captured and made to suffer at every turn, even after escaping the clutches of her kidnappers (Denise Nicholson, Marty Dew) who literally ooze criminality and unfettered evil from every pore. The emotionless Iva (Nicholson) is an unflinching portrayal and one that won’t leave you for a while.
Olivia D’Abo (Who recently won Best Actress for her role at the Hope Springs Film Fetival) and Randall Batinkoff as the initially distant parents who end up distraught as the drama unfolds is managed in a beautifully realised pair of performances, that any parent watching will not only understand but the stark realisation that it could be them adds to the gut punch that Lost Girls delivers.
The cinematography and editing is on point as Lost Girls doesn’t waste time with reels of exposition, the plot is moved right along dropping you the viewer right into the black heart of the seedy underbelly of the trafficking world. The characters in the film are taken from true life survivors too, so don’t for one minute think that this is a glossily designed promo. This is as close to the real as it gets.
The only thing that really doesn’t work is the poster for the film (You can view below), as it goes for a more cop thriller type of movie which is understandable from a marketing perspective as a film about trafficking isn’t really one that people are going to be queing around the block for, but even so, it’s somewhat misleading and could end up alienating an audience it’s trying to reach. However, don’t let that distract from the power of this movie.
Angie: Lost Girls may not be the most enjoyable experience, there’s plenty for you to revile from, but you simply have to watch and experience it as soon as possible, then maybe it’s mission to raise awareness about this hideous industry will be on it’s way to being completed.
Angie: Lost Girls is released on September 13th 2021.
