This documentary feature made by Kate Davis with Alyson Denny explores the lives of three female runaways, all in their teens and living in Boston. Pinky, a 14-year-old Puerto Rican truant in flight from the juvenile courts, is now living with her mother, but the other twoan 18-year-old stripper named Mars, who left home five years after her stepbrother raped her, and a young mother named Martha, also 18, who ran away at 12 to escape sexual abuseleave little doubt that they’re better off away from home. On the whole, this is a serious, hard, no-nonsense look at what all three have to contend with. One may question the amount of attention paid to Mars’s strip acta bizarre Lolita routine using props such as a lollipop and a tricyclealthough even here, the film implies that Mars is only perpetuating the problems she is running away from and living the childhood she never had. A grim film, but also a very human one; the intimate to-camera monologues are illuminating. (JR)