Final Rating: 4/5
When cartoonist Chester’s (Dan Beirne) long-term girlfriend Sonny (Emily Lê) informs him she’s falling in love with another man, he’s shocked at first, but willing to make an open relationship work. But as Sonny neglects Chester for her new boyfriend, he begins paying for sex. Though Sonny and Chester’s friends are initially apprehensive, his openness and clear love for his girlfriend shine through. Over the years, “paying for it” simply becomes a part of his identity. A part his friends don’t fully understand, but that Chester becomes quite protective of.
Based on the autobiographical graphic novel by Chester Brown and directed by Brown’s real-life ex-partner Sook-Yin Lee, Paying For It is a layered and charming story about finding love and acceptance in unexpected places. Like the comic from which it’s adapted, Paying aims to demystify sex work, while providing a fascinating reflection on life and love in the big city. Does Chester “resort” to hooking up with sex workers, or are his encounters with escorts simply a part of his life that allows him to focus on relationships without worrying about sex?
Paying doesn’t work without a phenomenal lead performance, and Beirne delivers. Chester is reserved and agreeable to a fault. In the earliest days of his open relationship with Sonny, he continues to live with her while her new boyfriend spends more and more time at their house, the paper-thin walls increasingly becoming a problem. Instead of ending the relationship, Chester simply moves to the basement as he and Sonny grow further apart.
There’s a complex sadness to Chester’s situation: he presses forward with an open relationship to a degree that’s often uncomfortable to watch, but at no point does he betray anything short of love for Sonny. It’s difficult to even say when the actual “breakup” of Sonny and Chester happens. The two remain friends for the entire film – which spans several years – and Chester never forms another committed relationship.
After years of frequenting sex workers, Chester becomes fervently aromantic. He explicitly adopts the mantra “romantic love is bullshit” and reframes his entire personality around it. Late in the film, Chester seems incapable of looking past his transactional approach to love and unwilling to budge on his self-imposed principles. In his final scene with Yulissa (Andrea Werhun) – an escort he sees for so long that he becomes her only client – he insists she take his money on her way out, only to be met by a moment of sadness on her face betraying that, to her, this relationship is more than just a transaction.
Paying, at its core, is a portrait of a relationship changing over time, with Sonny as integral to that relationship as Chester. Sonny (a video jockey at the barely-fictional MaxMusic) begins the film in a relationship with Chester, and doesn’t spend a minute outside of a relationship before the end of the film. Lê brings an enduring sense of dissatisfaction to the character. She’s unsure of what she wants in life, and equally unsure of how to broaden her horizons.
Through her relationships and career moves, Sonny attempts to grow as a person while clinging to an idea of a life she wants but doesn’t have. Her first relationship after Chester is marked by frequent trips to clubs and concerts. An exciting tryst with a musician that’s initially fun but ultimately hollow. A later relationship flirts with settling down and starting a family, but collapses when Sonny can’t commit. Through the years, Chester is shown as the only person who accepts Sonny unconditionally. And yet, even Sonny and Chester’s relationship is romantically unfulfilling.
In a way, Sonny’s relationship troubles mold her into a mirror image of Chester. Where Chester eschews romance, Sonny craves it. Where Chester finds fulfillment in his relationships, Sonny never can.
Beyond its portrayal of a changing relationship, Paying is also a portrait of a changing city. As the backdrop to Chester and Sonny’s story, Toronto is captured at various points around the turn of the millennium.
In 1999, Chester and his comic-artist friends attend a Comic-Con with a fully male audience. The lines for a chance to meet Chester and his male colleagues are out the door, while his female colleague, the most prolific of the group, is completely ignored. The most popular booth is a meet and greet with a “pornstar”, centerfold Mandy Moulin.
In 2003, the same group attend the same event, now with a larger and more diverse audience. Chester and his male colleagues still get fans, but the line for autographs by his female colleague now extends out the door. Moulin still attends, now with a smaller line and along with her family.
As Toronto’s fictional Comic-Con grows, it becomes more welcoming. It acts as a microcosm of the Toronto portrayed in the film, a city Lee clearly loves. Even as the biggest city in Canada, Toronto feels small. The characters visit local theatres, read books by local authors, and watch TV shows produced in-town. Lee’s vision of Toronto is rosy: imperfect but uncorrupted by chains or large corporate entities in favour of Torontonians as the beating heart of the city. The real-life Toronto Comic-Con is a huge event that draws major talent from all over the world; MuchMusic today would be unrecognizable to people familiar with the 1999 iteration; local theatres are in constant danger at the hands of landlords and nationwide cinema chains.
For the creatives behind it, Paying is a nostalgic film. Lee’s unique perspective allows her to take an already-excellent memoir and make it her own. Reflecting on her own experiences as well as Brown’s, Lee avoids a purely rose-tinted view of the past, and instead crafts a singular coming-of-age story with a nuanced pro-sex-work position.
Paying challenges the viewer to reflect on romantic and transactional love: what role should relationships play in one’s life? What kind of relationship (or lack of relationship) is best? Between a person satisfied with the services of a sex worker, and a person struggling for acceptance in a committed relationship, who is paying for it more?
Paying For It was seen during the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. Thank you to Roundstone Communications for the screener.
