Modern Whore is an 80-minute hybrid documentary where Toronto-based Andrea Werhun recounts her years as an escort and stripper through interviews, reenactments, and direct-to-camera narration. Its goal is to give audiences an authentic glimpse into how sex work actually functions today, and how different it is from the reputation and stigma built around it. Directed by longtime collaborator Nicole Bazuin, the film is colorful, humorous, and theatrical, blending candid memories with stylized visuals that give it an energy unlike most documentaries on the subject. It is carried by Werhun’s charisma, and by er ability to turn difficult or awkward truths into moments of wit and candor.
The feature has been years in the making. After meeting in 2011, Bazuin and Werhun became close friends and collaborators. Together they published Modern Whore: A Memoir in 2018, combining Werhun’s personal stories with Bazuin’s photography. That book led to two shorts (Modern Whore and Last Night at the Strip Club), and now the material arrives in feature form. Executive producer Sean Baker came on board after reading the memoir and inviting Werhun to consult on Anora, a collaboration that clearly strengthened both projects.
Bazuin’s light and stylish direction makes the film consistently entertaining, even when it deals with heavy subjects like stigma, prejudice, and sexual assault. Scenes often move from broad comedy to sharp insight within seconds, and the shifts feel natural and cohesive. Werhun plays with exaggerated wigs, takes on the roles of her conscience and inner shame, and occasionally breaks the fourth wall, but she is also deeply generous in what she shares. Her screen presence, already evident in the shorts and in Sook-Yin Lee’s Paying for It, holds the film together, while Bazuin’s Technicolor style ensures it remains visually striking.
What both want to convey is the day-to-day reality of sex work, and what workers must endure. Werhun speaks frankly about hiding her work from her Catholic mother, about facing predators among otherwise kind clients, and about the strange humiliation of seeing herself rated on escort review sites. These details cut through the clichés that usually define portrayals of sex work and make the film feel fresh and necessary.
There is one moment, however, that does not land as well. After leaving sex work for a few years to live on a farm with her boyfriend, Werhun returns to the city and attempts an office job. Trying to explain why that life was not for her, she says “I’d rather f*ck a stranger” while comparing it to commuting in rush hour for a job she hates. The line is meant to highlight her personal preference, but it comes across as dismissive of people who endure commutes and jobs they dislike, sometimes out of necessity. The film’s purpose is to destigmatize sex work by treating it as labor, but in this moment it feels like it elevates one kind of work by putting down another. The film is strongest when it shows empathy toward clients, coworkers and bar owners. When it turns to agencies and predatory customers, the bluntness is understandable given the harm involved, but the lack of nuance keeps those passages from resonating as much.
Even if more subtlety in those moments would have helped, the film’s flashy, attention-grabbing approach makes Modern Whore engaging from start to finish. It is stylish, entertaining, and clear about its message. Most of all, it gives us something rarely seen on screen: sex-work stories told directly by the people who lived them. Sean Baker’s films have shone a sympathetic light on these lives, but as much empathy as an outsider can bring, it is not the same as authorship. Here, Andrea Werhun takes full control of the narrative, shifting it from being about sex workers to being from a sex worker, and making it all the more revealing.
This is part of Reviews On Reels TIFF 2025 Coverage. Due to the hectic rhythm of a film festival, it may be tweaked in the future. Still courtesy of TIFF.
- 1. Sentimental Value
- 2. Hamnet
- 3. Blue Moon
- 4. Sirāt
- 5. The Testament of Ann Lee
- 26. Modern Whore
- Where to watch
- Rent or buy at Apple TV Store, Amazon Video
- Where to watch
- Not available for streaming
Play trailer
- Original title
- Modern Whore
- Director
- Nicole Bazuin
- Genre
- Documentary
- Cast
- Andrea Werhun
- Screenwriter
- Andrea Werhun, Nicole Bazuin
- Composer
- Tom Third
- Cinematography
- Nina Djacic
- Editor
- Nicole Bazuin
- Country
- Language
- English