Directed by Sean Baker, who wrote the movie with Chris Bergoch, this film was shot with three iPhone 5S smartphones. And from the beginning, I was sure I was going to hate it, as I was having issues with the look and feel and then, not just a few minutes in, I was swept into the world of Sin-Dee Rella (Kitana Kiki Rodriguez, who did not act again after this movie) and Alexandra (Mya Taylor), two trans sex workers out to find Sin-Dee’s pimp and lover Chester (James Ransone) for cheating on her with Dinah (Mickey O’Hagan).

Alexandra has a performance — one she paid for — in an empty bar while their lives also become mixed up with Armenian cab driver Razmik (Karren Karagulian) who has kept his love of prostitutes from his wife Yeva (Louisa Nersisyan) but not this night, Christmas night, when everything all falls apart inside a doughnut store.

Beyond the basic iPhones, the filmmakers used FiLMIC Pro, an app that fixes focus, aperture, and color temperature, as well as captures video clips at higher bit rates. They also had a Moondog Labs anamorphic adapter to shoot widescreen — Baked said, “It would let us shoot the way Sergio Leone would shoot westerns.” — and Tiffen’s Steadicam Smoothee that turns the iPhone into a fake StediCam.

The end of this film, when the two women are sitting inside a laundromat, one cleaning the other and finally gives her her wig to replace her ruined one is so raw. This whole movie is, an intimate exploration of lives lived a day at a time and a family about to be destroyed. The tree lights illuminate a man falling to pieces, which is one thing I wasn’t expecting in a Christmas movie.