The winner of the Cinefondation Award at Cannes, as well as the Audience Award at the CineVegas Film Festival, this film has already begun to receive some of the recognition it deserves. It is the story of one Chelsea McGann. Sixteen years old, badgered by her mother to get a summer job, she decides, with some prompting from her bad-girl best friend, to sell her virginity on eBay.
By beginning with a video diary of the whole process and then showing us a more conventional narrative, we are forced to examine a subject that even by the end of the first half was uncomfortably intimate. This intimacy is sustained as we watch the events for a second time, from a different point of view, by the tight direction and the power of Chelsea Logan’s acting. She is incredibly gifted, and the lines between reality and fiction are so effectively blurred that it continues to convince as a documentary long after it has been revealed otherwise. It is not an easy film to watch by any means, but it is a unique and tremendous achievement that stays in the mind long after it is over. NS
