Scrubbers

Not that it’s exactly a high bar to clear, but Scrubbers is one of the best women in prison movies I’ve ever seen. An antithesis to the exploitation subgenre, this movie takes queues from social realism, feminism and having basic empathy for its subject matter. Scrubbers is a companion piece to Scum, a film about male borstals in Britain. And even comparing these two films, Mai Zetterling’s focus on empathy for its characters and the community these women build makes Scrubbers really stand out as a film that doesn’t pull its punches but doesn’t delve into salaciousness.

Scrubbers is about the inmates of a female borstal. Chief among them are two young women who begin the film trying to escape. Annetta is desperate to see her young daughter, Alice. Carol, meanwhile has other plans. Carol intentionally gets recaptured so she can be in the same borstal as the woman she loves, Doreen. Though by the time Carol enters the borstal, Doreen’s found someone new. Carol is heartbroken, but there’s another woman named Eddie who seems interested in Carol. Meanwhile, Annetta is recaptured as well and thrown in the same borstal. In her despair, Annetta rebels and acts out. Annetta convinces herself that Carol grassed on her, meaning Carol is the reason Annetta is here, instead of free with her daughter.

Scrubbers does something simple but sensational. This film shows extraordinary empathy for all of these incarcerated young women. None of them deserve to be treated like this system treats them and all are given understanding as to why they might have committed crimes in the first place. Scrubbers also depicts these women as deeply flawed and incredibly human. On a mere physical level, these sympathetic women are allowed to be gross. Scrubbers doesn’t shy away from subjects like human waste or an unshaven armpit, something that shouldn’t be radical but films often gloss over such concepts. And on a personal level, these women are bawdy, uncouth, violent and impulsive. The characters all have flaws. The film can even focus in on these flaws, but all with a sense of profound empathy that always circles back to the idea that these women shouldn’t be treated the way the borstal treats them.

As a sapphic film, Scrubbers is sort of borderline. Because of the ensemble nature of the film, it’s not easy to determine whether Carol counts as the “protagonist.” She and Annetta are the two focused characters, though Annetta certainly gets more dialogue than the silent Carol. But outside of Carol, Scrubbers has at least five sapphic characters in its ensemble. There’s Doreen and her new girlfriend, Carol’s new squeeze, Eddie and two girls who yell their love for one another through the windows of their respective cells at night. Unlike most women in prison films, this lesbian content is not salacious. It’s also not something the movie feels the need to explain or solve. Sometimes girls are queer. This might become more frequent in an environment of just girls. Such is the case in Scrubbers.

This film is a great use of its ensemble cast. There are scenes of rebellious anarchy where most of the ensemble cast takes part. And within that chaos and cacophony, each character still has a unique part to play. These secondary characters are almost as well-drawn as the leads, and in some cases more than the particularly silent Carol. There’s a sense of community in Scrubbers. These women all have distinct personalities and opinions. Such distinct elements inform where they fit into this system. But there is a place for everyone, and not one woman gets lost in the shuffle for too long.

Scrubbers is an excellent piece of feminist filmmaking and a welcome alternative to women in prison exploitation. Its understanding and depiction of humanity is something that looks so easy under the eye of director and co-writer Mai Zetterling. But while Zetterling makes it look easy, I’ve seen few films that evoke such empathy for such a large cast of women while still depicting the women with inherent flaws. No character is put on a pedestal here. All of its characters are on more or less equal ground. And in that equal ground, there’s also the opinion that hey, maybe the prison system is bad, actually. By the time Scrubbers was released, the borstal system was on its way out. Though the themes present in this film remain true in whatever new name or form the prison industrial complex takes on next.

Overall rating: 8.2/10

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