Sold

Lakshmi is a thirteen-year-old girl living with her family in a hut on a mountain in Nepal. When the monsoon rains take the crop entirely, her father says she must go and work in the city and send money home. A broker, a well-dressed woman, tells her a job as a maid will be found for her. Lakshmi travels to India and only understands once she is there that the place she has come to is a brothel. The source is Patricia McCormick's novel for young readers. Jeffrey D. Brown's film stands on the line between showing the subject and exploiting it, and largely stays on the right side: the violence is not shown and the telling is held in the girl's view. Gillian Anderson and David Arquette play two foreigners trying to find her; that strand is the film's weakest part, because it brings the rescuer mould back. The Indian and Nepali performers are the real strength of the film.