Claire Dolan (1998)

When it comes to making films about women in extremis, you can't beat a man like Lodge H. Kerrigan, director of Claire Dolan (1998). Claire is a thirty-something Irish-born prostitute who plies her trade upon the crisp sheets of mid-level Manhattan hotel suites. The anguish and loss unleashed by her mother’s cancer death finds the working lady reassessing her ways and means. When a cabbie falls in love with her and she discovers she is pregnant with his child, a new, better life seems to be falling into place. But that’s right where everything starts to go wrong.