They live in the same neighbourhood as Chuan, a taxi-driver-cum-spirit medium, and June, a Thai mamasan working in a HDB brothel. He is dealing with the guilt of losing his wife, by drinking and working himself into a state of numbness. She is fleeing a life of poverty in rural Thailand, into the arms of a dodgy Singaporean towkay.

It sounds a bit like poverty porn, but it’s not. Director Ler Jiyuan manages to walk the tightrope between representation and exploitation. The circumstances may be grim, but it never descends into MediaCorp-style melodrama. The characters are deeply flawed, but they are not reduced to caricatures or cautionary tales. The police do not kick down the door screaming: “Stop! Police!” The poor are not turned into saints on account of their poverty. The bosses may be brusque and pragmatic, but they are not scumbags who delight in their own malice.

This is one of Invisible stories’ greatest strengths. In the hands of a lousy director, Invisible Stories would have turned into one of those moralising television sermons where the good are rewarded for their virtue with 4D winnings and the bad find redemption after a long staycation in Changi. Instead, it takes a more subtle route by showing us the motivations and circumstances that shape their worldview.

June, for example, employs underage prostitutes. She urges a reluctant associate to recruit more jailbait. He is done with pimping, but she insists because the younger ones are more popular. This seems a little repulsive, but is it really? June cares for her girls as a surrogate mother would. She shops, cooks and even urges Muay, a younger prostitute, to finish her studies.

When an older colleague, Bel, tries to seduce Muay with the promise of ‘adventures’ in Korea, June tells her off with the stern demeanour of a young teacher: Don’t listen to that Bimbo.

Likewise for the men who frequent the brothel. In most shows, the johns are portrayed as cretins and losers. Some of June’s clientele are indeed cretins, but some are sweet whilst others are a lot worse. After a lifetime of swallowing our government’s rather Catholic attitude towards—uh—procreation, it’s refreshing to see the sex-trade portrayed in a manner so even-handed.