Fucktoys

An American independent film. AP works as a sex worker in a place the film calls Trashtown. It is not a real town and not quite a fantasy either; the film treats it as a slightly warped version of the American South. She learns she is cursed. To have the curse lifted she needs a specific sum of money, and she has a short time to raise it. From there the film is an episode structure. She goes from client to client and from friend to friend, and each stop is a small self-contained scene with its own tone. The people she meets are not written as warnings. Nobody is redeemed and nobody is punished, and the film declines to be a cautionary tale about the work. What the narrative is interested in is not sex but errand: the whole film is a woman trying to get a sum of money together, and it stays at that level on purpose. The look is the strongest thing in it. It was shot on film rather than digitally, and the grain, the saturated colour and the staged tableaux do most of the work. The register is closer to a fable than to realism, with a talking animal, a curse and a quest, all played straight. Annapurna Sriram wrote and directed it and plays AP; it was her first feature as director. Sadie Scott and Damian Young are among the cast. It premiered at South by Southwest in 2025. Who it is for: anyone who wants a first film with a strong visual idea and no interest in being liked. Who it is not for: anyone who wants a plot; the structure is a string of encounters and the title is an accurate warning about the content.