The Sales Girl Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		4.0

The Sales Girl Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman March 8, 2025

Sean Baker is currently attempting to find adequate shelf space for the armful of Academy Awards he just took home for Anora, but his 2012 opus Starlet, which I reviewed back in 2013, may provide a kind of interesting "double feature" with The Sales Girl for some adventurous viewers. Both films document an unlikely friendship between a younger girl and an older woman, and both films at least discursively allude to what might be referred to as the "sex industry". In the case of Starlet, it's the porn world that has evidently set up shop permanently in the San Fernando Valley, while in The Sales Girl, it's a basement emporium which specializes in "adult toys" and the like, an environment which is a decidedly new and eye opening experience for young college coed Saruul (Bayartsetseg Bayangerel), who agrees to help a comically injured friend who needs someone to fill in for her at the shop until the injury has healed. What ensues is a "coming of age" story for Saruul which also involves a burgeoning friendship (?) with the shop's older owner, Katya (Enkhtuul Oidovjamts).

As with at least the middle section of Starlet, there's a vignette driven approach to The Sales Girl which offers brief, often somewhat funny, interchanges between Saruul and any number of customers who enter the shop. What anchors the film and ties everything together is the slowly developing relationship between the seemingly crusty Katya and the probably incredibly naive Saruul, a narrative which slowly but surely doles out a bit of background information about Katya, and which also provides a clear "arc" for Saruul, whose curiosity about her workplace and the whole contextual environment starts to "educate" her. As might be gleaned from the unusual names of the actresses, the film is a Mongolian production, and there's a bit of "color" added to the story simply courtesy of its location.

The Sales Girl Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Sales Girl is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Film Movement with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.00:1. While the IMDb doesn't have much information as of the writing of this review, the closing credits roll briefly displays the Arri logo, so I'm assuming Alexas were used, with a 2K DI (if anyone has authoritative, verifiable information to the contrary, Private Message me and I'll happily update things here). This is a really appealing looking presentation with some bright, almost candy colored, hues permeating the production design and commendable detail levels throughout. Outdoor scenes, which are probably less prevalent than the interior material, understandably pop the best, but even some of the relatively dimly lit sex shop scenes provide really nice suffusion and consistently excellent fine detail levels.

The Sales Girl Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Note: Perhaps understandably, Mongolian is such an unusual language for a Blu-ray release that we actually need to update our audio codec database to account for this disc's LPCM 2.0 audio, so specs above may be incorrect until the database is updated.

The Sales Girl features a nicely expressive LPCM 2.0 track in the original Mongolian (with some smatterings of Russian for good measure). There's a somewhat whimsical quality to the sound design, but the bulk of the film is relatively simple and dialogue driven, and the track supports all of the material without any issues whatsoever. All spoken material is delivered cleanly and clearly and the occasionally humorous sound effects also are presented realistically. Optional English subtitles are available.

The back cover lists a surround track, but the disc sent to me did not have one.

The Sales Girl Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• The Sales Girl Making Of (HD; 12:28) is an enjoyable EPK with some good interviews and fun candid footage. Subtitled in English.


• The Sales Girl Trailer (HD; 1:21)

As with many releases from this label, the Main Menu also features an About Film Movement option, which brings up a text box offering information. The insert sleeve has two brief paragraphs on the inside, one from Film Movement about why they chose the film for Blu-ray release, and another featuring a statement from director Sengedorj Janchivdorj.

The limited release from Vinegar Syndrome evidently had a slipcover, but the review copy sent to me did not have one.

The Sales Girl Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Despite its potentially provocative setting and even some of its plot points, The Sales Girl is really ultimately kind of a sweet, unassuming tale of a girl becoming a woman and taking control of her life and understanding that "female empowerment" can mean all sorts of things. Performances are winning, technical merits are solid, and the brief EPK enjoyable. Recommended.