"Prostitute." "Whore." "Ho." "Hustler." Whatever you want to call them, members of the world's oldest profession contend with the same age-old issues no matter where they are across the globe. Director Luna's creative take on Isabel Pisano's book of first-hand accounts of a diverse group of prostitutes -- from a high-class French call girl, to an African "with a mouth made to suck," to a former Puerto Rican police officer who uses his billy club to the satisfaction of his female clients -- is provocative, stylish, and fascinating. In a surreal documentary style, filmed vignettes spoken directly to the camera by prostitutes and johns are interwoven with a fictional storyline about a journalism student (Denise Richards) and her aspiring actress neighbor (Daryl Hannah). Fascinated by the sex trade, the journalist searches for potential interviewees for her book, discovering in the process that her neighbor is a prostitute. Whore's inventive and engaging narrative includes dreamy, stylized recreations of the book's accounts juxtaposed with real documentary footage that touches on issues of money, violence, and porn acting versus prostituting. The intriguing candor of the accounts hinges on the self-assured testimonials of many of the subjects, who understand their trade and their place in society, with many finding what they do empowering, secure, and quite often lucrative. Though the subject may seem titillating on the surface, Luna has managed to construct an exceedingly original movie that uses pop culture elements to take these stories usually reserved for the underground into the mainstream.