Based on her ex-partner Chester Brown's unsparing graphic memoir, Sook-Yin Lee's Paying For It immediately joins the pantheon of queasy-making adaptations of confessional comix. Lee handily reinterprets the sequence of events that took place during the dissolution of her relationship with Brown; what began initially as a chronicle of a breakup shifts into more provocative territory when Chester (played by Dan Beirne in Lee's film) decides to sleep only with sex workers while still rooming with Lee (Emily Le.)
While Chester's decision threatens to upend the delicate balance of their living arrangement, these events are treated with warmth and a good-faith attempt at tackling a socially fraught topic. Equal parts a personal narrative and an indie comedy with unfakeable details about life in turn-of-the-millennium Toronto, Paying For It manages to be both funny and revelatory in its willingness to thoughtfully reshape the (recent) past.
New York premiere. Co-presented by PictoBeach.
Special thanks to Dave Nuss, Steve Macfarlane, Erin Farrell and Film Movement.
Doors at 7pm with food by Brothers.
