Cert 15
104 mins
BBFC advice: Contains strong sex references, drug references, prostitution theme
If ever, after 29 years together, I needed evidence than Mrs W is a most wonderful woman, then it was obvious this weekend.
Which other wife would have been willing to dart off to London to watch six movies, including two Tamil films and THREE Turkish pictures,
Not only that but she drove to our hotel in east London, enabling me to watch Kim Loginotto's enthralling Dreamcatcher in our passenger seat.
This is a documentary about a team which is trying to turn young women away from their lives of prostitution in Chicago.
In many way, it feels like a complementary work to The Interrupters, a superb film about gangs in the same city.
Loginotto's movie touches on the same drug culture and breakdown of family which lures young people into crime.
It also delves further into the background of the prostitutes, discovering the levels of abuse they suffered before taking to the streets,
Like The Interrupters, it alights on a central character who gains the confidence of her charges because she was once one of them.
In fact, it is a miracle that Brenda Myers-Powell is alive because she has been shot and stabbed so many times.
Following her epiphany, she has driven through the streets, talking to young women and is able to persuade some of them to join her classes.
This is where she presents speakers such as a reformed pimp and even her own daughter who tells what is was like to grow up with a mother who sold herself.
The skill of Loginotto's film is the way she has been able to prompt her subjects to open up.
Their stories are dramatic but, as Myers-Powell proves, change is possible.
Director Kim Loginotto on why abused girls were so open: "There is a sense that there is a point in speaking because all of you are going to hear what they have to say and at last they have got a witness."
Reasons to watch: The first person accounts of those who work the streets.
Reasons to avoid: Won't tick the box of those who ant to sidestep life's grit.
Laughs: none
Jumps: none
Vomit: none
Nudity: none
Overall rating: 8.5/10