Quid Pro Quo

Another important theme in the movie is transactions. Some of these are monetary; some are otherwise.

At the start, Thomas is offered ballet tickets in lieu of cab fare. As a consequence he gradually develops a cruising MO where he sells a ticket to a prospective hook-up only to return the man’s money after the performance and thereby create an obligation to continue the evening elsewhere. We also overhear Thomas refusing to pay for a botched remodeling job.

Francis pays his niece to babysit a baby that is not there—a transaction that she eventually refuses. Francis also offers Thomas an exchange where he will falsify the audit Thomas’s records if Thomas will wear a wire into the Exotica for him.

At the club Eric’s job is only partly that of master of ceremonies; perhaps more important is his role as salesman to get clients to buy table dances from the strippers. We learn that Christina’s falling out with Eric is the result of discovering a secret transaction—Eric’s contract to father Zoe’s child. And finally, after Zoe expresses puzzlement that Eric would continue to work in such a painful environment, we get what is perhaps Christina’s most important line, “Zoe, not all of us have the luxury of deciding what to do with our lives. It’s a job; he’s getting paid alright.”