'Holly' points a finger at Cambodia's child sex business

Picture: A scene of an American living in Cambodia trying to save a Vietnamese girl from being sold to prostitution.

Review: 'Holly' points a finger at Cambodia's child sex business
Mick LaSalle, Chronicle Movie Critic
Friday, November 30, 2007


Holly: Drama. Starring Ron Livingston, Thuy Nguyen, Virginie Ledoyen and Chris Penn. Directed by Guy Moshe. In English, Khmer and Vietnamese with English subtitles. (R. 114 minutes. At Bay Area theaters.)
"Holly" takes on a big subject, but it does so with a small story - not just small in scope, which would have been a reasonable approach, but small in narrative interest. The meager plot and the uncomplicated characters collapse under the weight of director Guy Moshe's intention to make a sprawling, dramatically effective film highlighting the plight of child prostitutes in Cambodia.
The problem, which extends beyond Cambodia, is real. Girls are sold into slavery by their starving rural families and taken to cities where they live under the tyranny of some of the most evil people imaginable. Little girls are apparently big money. Organized crime is involved, and rescuing these children by buying them from their captors only perpetuates the problem. The more money these monsters get, the more girls they, in turn, can buy from impoverished families. "Holly" serves a purpose in highlighting this tragedy, and to the extent that it does, it's effective.
The movie starts vividly, with a disgraceful spectacle. A 12-year-old girl, Holly (Thuy Nguyen), is trying to flee her captors, and grown men are in pursuit. We see these thugs fanning out across a marketplace, and finally they catch up with her and throw her into the back of a truck. They return her to the witch who runs the brothel, and Holly is locked into a room in preparation for the eventual payday. The madam is intent on finding some pathetic, poor-excuse-for-a-human-being Westerner to pay $1,000 to have sex with a virgin.
Not every Westerner in Cambodia is interested in little girls, fortunately. Ron Livingston plays Patrick, an American who has lived in the region for years, for reasons that aren't clear but probably should be. Patrick gets by as a card player and seems to be floating aimlessly through life, and when his motorcycle breaks down, he finds himself having to stay overnight in the brothel where Holly works. He gradually gets drawn in to her story.
This is essentially the beginning of "Holly," and yet even by this point Moshe has exhausted a viewer's confidence and patience. If a character has to walk across the street, Moshe will show the character walking across the entire street, rather than have him begin to cross and then cut to his getting there. The director's intention seems to be to linger on the details of Cambodian village life, but even then the lingering isn't pointed. Moshe doesn't direct us to notice this or that element but rather expects us to luxuriate in the random elements we're shown. The effect is that the movie feels stuck in mud.
The movie's chief virtue is its uncompromising honesty, notably in its portrayal of Holly. Her relationship with Patrick isn't sentimentalized in the usual American-movie way. Though only 12, she is already damaged and is incapable of seeing Patrick as anything other than a potential boyfriend or husband. She is confused when he doesn't want "yum-yum" (a euphemism for one sex act) or "boom-boom" (a euphemism for another). Even better is his reaction to her. Instead of taking the moral high ground and assuring her that she has finally found an adoptive parent, he is horrified and flummoxed and doesn't quite know how to get through to her. "Holly" doesn't skirt the barriers of cultural confusion or language, and it doesn't pretend that the damage to this child can be easily reversed.
Livingston's portrayal as a flawed but pure-hearted guy just trying to do the right thing strikes the right notes, but there's something limited to the character as conceived. French actress Virginie Ledoyen, as an anti-prostitution relief worker, has a lackluster role as the mouthpiece of the filmmaker. And the late Chris Penn, as Patrick's street-smart friend, shows up in a few scenes, long enough to remind us that we lost a no-nonsense character actor of authority and presence.
Ultimately, "Holly" might have been more effective as a documentary. Dennis O'Rourke's "The Good Woman of Bangkok," about farm girls sold into prostitution in Thailand, touched on many of these issues, and I remember it as a near masterpiece. (Unfortunately, it's out of print on VHS and is not yet on DVD.) Moshe, who co-wrote the script, has a passion for this subject that's somehow diffused by his having to express it through fictional characters.
-- Advisory: Disturbing sex talk involving underage girls, strong language and violence.
To hear Mick LaSalle talk about movies, listen to his weekly podcast at sfgate.com/podcasts.
E-mail Mick LaSalle at mlasalle@sfchronicle.com.
This article appeared on page E - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle