14 Nov Hussy – Review

FlixFling contributor Rebecca Raymer reviews Hussy:

Hussy is a 1980 drama directed and written by Matthew Chapman, and starring Helen Miren and John Shea.

It is quite a sad story. Miren is amazing as the main character, Beatty, and plays her role as a badly damaged prostitute with raw and painful inflections of detached emotion. Emory (Shea), her primary love interest, comes across as naïve but passionate, determined to take her and her son away from it all.

Hussy was initially released in the United Kingdom, and later in Finland. The unapologetic incorporation of sexually “deviant” lifestyles, including a number of scenes in which the lines of gender are blurred, were a bit much for the United States to handle in 1980…and are still in 2011. Unlike many American films, past and present, homosexuality is portrayed in this film without shock or outrage, or with any explanation at all; it is simply part of the story. Having creative freedom beyond the restrictive and conservative American values is of real benefit to this movie, and to its audience.

Overall, Hussy is a film that realistically offers a glimpse of the difficulties involved in simply surviving, particularly for women. The story, although sad and tragic in its essence, does end on a note of hope, albeit in a fairytale type of way. The movie might be thirty years old, but the cruelty of belittling and shamelessly taking advantage of the vulnerable is certainly relevant today.

Click here to watch Hussy on FlixFling now!  Rate the film and write your own review!