Genre: Black comedy
Director: Jonathan Gems
Script: Jonathan Gems
Producers: Susan Shapiro, Robert Mickelson, Marcus Wylde
Score: Stephen Croes
Director of Photography: John Forsyte
Editor: Ned Bastille
Cast: Yancy Butler as Wendy
Daniel Baldwin as Tony 
Seymour Cassel as The Councilman 
Georgina Cates as Mimi 
Julie Delpy as Francesca 
Patrick Dempsey as Mike 
Pamela Gidley as Dolly 

Cineville/Cinequanon Pictures International

Ever since Pretty Woman, everyone has learned about prostitutes being good people. Often those women are forced into this line of business by bad luck and actually try to achieve higher things. 
In his first full length film Jonathan Gems tells the story of three prostitutes. Francesca (Delpy), fragile and pretty but permanently on coke flees her husband Mike (Dempsey) after her miscarriage, Dolly  (Gidley) is actually a lesbian and is just trying to get enough money together to be able to start her own restaurant and Mimi (Cates) is following the Lord. Sounds pretty melodramatic but the spectator is always confronted with the obsessions of the sex-hungry men. Pimp Tony (Baldwin) always finds suitors who have strange wishes: Michael York needs a wedding ceremony to get horny as the bride's father and Vincent Perez takes pictures of the muses in antique clothes. The Treat is a comedy of black humour, showing the human side of the perhaps most human line of business.

In this dark edged tale of triumph of human spirit, three small time hookers struggle to beat the prostitution game. Sexy Francesca is running from a husband and a tragic memory, strong headed Dolly is hiding the secret of a lesbian lover (Yancy playes Dolly's lesbian lover) and saving up to realize a dream. Fragile Mimi is putting all her faith in God while suffering the abuse of her sexually deviant client, the macho Colonel. 

The girls' lives threaten to spin out of control until one lucky night, when their pimp Tony gives them an "invitation" to work the town Major's birthday bash. Which girl gets to be the major's special treat? And what if things don't work out quite as planned? 

A surprise visitor and an unexpected disaster turns the splashy party into a madhouse and Francesca, Mimi and Dolly find that allthough escaping a life of tricks is a tough game, the day comes when every girl gets a treat of their own.

I have not seen this movie myself yet.

Premiered at the 5th Oldenburg International Film Festival in September 1998