Free the Nipple

Actress Lina Esco co-wrote and directed this lively comedy-drama based on real events concerning an unusual cause championed first in New York City and then across the nation. A group of women who are tired of police harassment for appearing topless in public (despite toplessness being legal in New York) form a campaign to challenge the criminalization of their breasts. Organizing strategic demonstrations and protests (often involving masks and painted slogans across bare torsos) while simultaneously appealing to an indifferent media, the activists take on sociocultural hypocrisy in which women's bodies are simultaneously exploited and condemned. Esco herself is effective in a major role here as the campaign's co-leader, a struggling reporter who becomes a driving force for change but is reticent to literally put her own body on the line. While Free the Nipple might sound like a fairly titillating film, the larger point being made here is what ultimately triumphs, especially when hundreds of women across the nation join in. Recommended. (T. Keogh)