Las Elegidas

A Mexican film from 2015 we came across scrolling through Netflix, this one hard baby to watch.

Not because of the film itself, but because it is a rock hard reality check... about forced prostitution.

Plot (from Wikipedia)

Teenagers Ulysis (Oscars Torres) and Sofia (Nancy Talamantes) are in a relationship. It is revealed that Ulysis is being groomed by his family to entrap his young lovers into the prostitution ring that forms his family's business. Having fallen for Sofia his first lover, Ulysis puts up an unsuccessful fight to prevent her from being exploited. His father agrees to let Sofia free only when Ulysis gets another young girl to replace her in the brothel. Thus he sets toward honeytrapping his extensive victim.
Meanwhile, Sofia is pushed further into the flesh trade and hardens up after seeing the chances of her escape getting slimmer as days go by. She finally finds a good samaritan who plans to get her out, but soon before that Ulysis manages to push another girl, Marta into prostitution to replace her and takes Sofia away to live with him.

Getting back to relative freedom and into Ulysis's family, Sofia finds it difficult to be happy or thankful to Ulysis, who is the root cause of her miseries and the reason why she cannot see her family. She also realises another girl has been trapped by Ulysis as her replacement and struggles with this thought. Ulysis in turn tries to please her in futility but cannot get her to revert to the happy sweetheart she was, and also feels guilty about it. The film ends with Sofia and Ulysis on a seemingly normal outing with Ulysis's family but the two youngsters glance at each other probably wondering if things will ever be normal again.

What I liked about it

* Not a gratuitious softsex movie but a hard look at a real issue in Mexico, on how very young girls are forced into working as prostitutes.

What I didn`t like about it

* the whole taxi sequence was a bit confusing, what happened that she didn`t escape?

A good movie from a not so often seen "market" of film making here in Western Europe, this was not the sit back movie we expected on a sunday afternoon.  Many swallows where made as we watched about these problems.

Not for the faint hearted...