Sundance review: 'The Stroll' is a sympathetic first-person account of life as a Black trans woman sex worker in pre-gentrified New York

I believe in Roger Ebert’s maxim that “movies are a machine that creates empathy,” and I found myself feeling a lot of empathy for Black trans women sex workers after watching “The Stroll.”

This documentary focuses on the lives of Black trans women who for years made money in one of the few avenues open to them in the ‘80s and ‘90s: As sex workers in New York’s Meatpacking District. For many of them, it was the only place to go when family threw them out for their gender identity. 

It was a rough life, as described by co-director Kristen Lovell (who made the film with Zackary Drucker). Lovell lived the life on The Stroll, as the street was called then. Lovell gathers some of her friends from those days — many of them still friends today — to reminisce. 

If it wasn’t the johns threatening your or hurting you, it was the cops harassing or arresting them, or busting up the homeless encampments where they had to live. This increased when Rudy Giuliani became mayor, because of his policies to increase police crackdowns. As the years passed, the other threat to the life on The Stroll was gentrification, turning the rough-and-tumble Meatpacking District into “The High Line,” and pricing homeless trans people out of the market. 

There’s a poignant moment where one of Lovell’s friends recounts how she spent 14 years in prison, and came back to find her old stomping grounds were now a yuppie haven.

Much of “The Stroll” plays out like that: Oddly nostalgic for what was probably a tough time for these women — but understandable, because it was all they knew back then. The movie shows a New York that is no more, and a sisterhood forged in the flames of those hardships.

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’The Stroll’

★★★1/2

Playing in the U.S. Documentary competition of the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. Screens again Tuesday, Jan. 24, 11:15 a.m., The Ray Theatre, Park City; Wednesday, Jan. 25, 10 p.m., Redstone Cinemas, Park City; Thursday, Jan. 26, 9 a.m., Park Avenue Theatre, Park City; Friday, Jan. 27, 3:45 p.m., Broadway Centre Cinemas, Salt Lake City. Also screening online on the Sundance Film Festival platform, starting Tuesday, Jan. 24. Not rated, but probably R for strong sexual content, nude images, drug use, discussions of violence, and language. Running time: 84 minutes.