![]() Born out of wedlock in New England to doting mother Mae (Nina Dobrev) and wealthy married businessman Alex (Josh Taylor), Sarah has her idyllic childhood cut short when her spiteful father cuts them off financially, plunging Mae into prostitution and consumption. The first of several ungainly flashbacks reveals that this so-called fallen woman, formerly named Sarah, never had far to fall. Its prize attraction, meanwhile, is Angel (Cowen), a flaxen-haired veteran of the scene at barely 20 years of age, so in demand that daily lotteries are held for her services. It patly underlines the script’s scene-setting in 1850s California, where mangy-looking prospectors pan for gold in the riverbed before heading back to the rowdy streets of Pair-o-Dice, where the brothel run by imperious madam Duchess (Famke Janssen, haughtily gliding above it all) is the main game in town. “All that glitters is not gold,” we are reminded. As if to signal its goodwill toward secular viewers - if not any kind of aversion to cliché - the film opens on a quote not from the good book but from Shakespeare. ![]()
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