Trade is one of the roughest movies I’ve seen lately, and it’s one I’ll admit that I watched with a finger firmly planted on the fast forward button. A combination of the subject matter (human trafficking) and the inclusion of Kevin Kline in the cast made it one that I figured I’d rent, but I knew it would be difficult. This is no trite made-for-television after school special: it’s a hard-knock look at the ways in which human trafficking impacts an individual family as well as a culture and society.

Our main protagonists, Jorge and Ray, meet when Jorge steals a ride in Ray’s trunk across the border from Mexico into the United States. Jorge is searching for his kidnapped thirteen-year-old sister and Ray is searching for the daughter who he’s never known. While statistics provided after the film tell us that between fifty and one hundred thousand women and children are trafficked in the United States and one million worldwide, this film hasn’t kept the individual injustices from us in its depiction. Jorge’s sister is the prize kidnappee but there are others as well, and their stories blend in with that of Adriana’s.

The stories of Ray and Jorge are blended and meshed because both of them are gray figures, neither good nor bad. Ray’s character searches for the product of an affair; Jorge once used the tastes of those he now chases to lure similar men off the beaten path to rob them. Both men are Adriana’s hope, whether she knows it or not, but the truth is that their struggle is partially of their own making. The evidence itself guarantees that we can relate to some extent with their plight, and the human condition itself becomes a subject of their search.

While the movie does provide us some sense of justice (and vengeance), it left me with an overwhelming sense of sadness, a sense of the sickness in the human condition. Unlike other films that promise some emotional payoff, some dominance over the forces of evil, we’re left with a sense of dissatisfaction and emptiness (similar to the end of The Kingdom.) Trade shows us that everyone is someone’s baby, someone’s father, brother, sister, mother, and that the consequences of our actions affect all those who we love.

For our site specifically, the fact that prayer and religion are bandied about by both the searchers and the traffickers makes faith an interesting subject here. What does it mean when a “snake” or trafficker can stop on a deserted hill before a cross and pray the “Our Father” as he leads a group of girls to a life of imprisonment and abuse? What prayers are answered in this film, if any? It remains unclear, even in the end, what effect prayer is believed to have on the course of the action. What remains true is that hope can lead to redemption, salvation, and truth. And the truth can set you free.