Film

Very Young Girls

A documentary following Rachel Lloyd and her organization GEMS as they support sexually exploited young women in New York City. Direct, unflinching, and focused on real intervention rather than spectacle. Essential viewing for understanding a hidden crisis and the practical, urgent work of harm reduction and survivor-led activism.

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you want a documentary that stays with the girls and the advocates doing the slow, unglamorous work of getting them out, and you can take hard testimony without looking away.

Skip it if you need a light touch or a story with a clear arc, since this is a plain-spoken, issue-driven film that circles its subject rather than shaping a narrative.

What it asks of you: About eighty-three minutes of steady attention to hard interviews and sober detail, with little lightness to lean on and a patience for talk-heavy stretches.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Room2015

Explores captivity and escape through a child's perspective with devastating clarity. Brie Larson's performance captures both trauma and resilience in ways that feel true rather than performative.

But The subject matter is harrowing and the emotional weight relentless. Not an easy watch, though ultimately about survival and love.

Room poster

An Open Secret2014

Documentary investigation into systemic abuse of child actors in Hollywood. Like Very Young Girls, it names structures that protect perpetrators and demands accountability from institutions.

But Deeply disturbing. The complicity of powerful people may frustrate rather than satisfy. No neat resolution.

An Open Secret poster

Spotlight2015

Journalists systematically expose institutional abuse. The film models investigative rigor and shows how persistence and cooperation crack open sealed systems, mirroring GEMS' work.

But Procedural pacing may feel slow. Drama comes from bureaucracy and paperwork rather than action.

Spotlight poster

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Very Young Girls

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Born into Brothels: Calcutta's Red Light Kids2004

Both films reject spectacle or pity in favor of showing how young people can speak for themselves and build different futures. Both trust their subjects.

Documentary about the children of sex workers in Calcutta, taught photography to document their own lives and escape cycles of exploitation. Like Very Young Girls, it centers young people's agency and voices rather than positioning them as passive victims.

But Shot over years in difficult conditions. Some find the intervention model paternalistic despite good intentions.

Born into Brothels: Calcutta's Red Light Kids poster
More like this (7)

The Tale2018

Jennifer Fox's autobiographical film reconstructs her own grooming as a child with unflinching honesty. Explores how victims internalize and rationalize abuse, and the long recovery.

But Narrative structure is fragmented and deliberately confusing, reflecting trauma's distortion of memory. Not linear or comfortable.

The Tale poster

Children of the Corn1984

Grimy, low-budget horror that captures genuine menace and exploitation. Uses genre to explore how systems isolate and control the young.

But Dated effects and uneven acting. Functions as genre entertainment first, social document second.

Children of the Corn poster

Audrie & Daisy2016

Two young women's stories of assault and the communities that failed them. Documentary examines victim-blaming and the courage required to speak up.

But Focuses on school and small-town dynamics rather than street-level trafficking. A different but related exploitation.

Audrie & Daisy poster

The Hunting Ground2015

Investigates sexual assault on college campuses and institutional cover-ups. Shows how power protects abusers across different settings.

But Some interviews have been disputed. The film's advocacy sometimes outpaces its evidence, though the core problem is real.

The Hunting Ground poster

Tender Mercies1983

Character study of a man rebuilding after addiction and loss. Quiet film about healing and second chances, themes central to GEMS' mission.

But Sparse, slow, and meditative. No plot momentum. Requires patience with understated emotion.

Tender Mercies poster

The Wire2002

Both works refuse to separate individual stories from the systems that trap people. Both see exploitation as structural, not incidental. Both trust the audience to handle complexity.

Five seasons examining Baltimore's interconnected systems of police, schools, politics, and street life. Season 2 includes trafficking storylines that reflect structural poverty that makes young people vulnerable, the invisible infrastructure behind what GEMS addresses directly.

But Requires commitment to a large ensemble and slow-burn plotting. Takes time to reveal how systems connect. Not a story with a neat ending.

The Wire poster

My Own Private Idaho1991

Both capture survival sex from the perspective of those living it rather than those studying it. Both refuse to infantilize or sentimentalize. Both center the actual lives and desires of the people affected.

Gus Van Sant's portrait of young homeless men engaged in survival sex on Portland streets. Poetic, gender-nonconforming, shot by River Phoenix at the height of his power. Looks and feels nothing like a documentary, but maps the same terrain.

But Deliberately fragmented, elliptical, and sometimes arch. The gorgeous cinematography and oblique storytelling can feel at odds with the gravity of the subject.

My Own Private Idaho poster

People

Directing

Production

Recommended by

Tyler Perry's Beauty in Black, Eastern Promises, Dreamcatcher