Paying For It

Event Description

Even in the wildly varied career she’s led in this country’s overlapping worlds of film, television, music and art since she first made her mark in Vancouver’s music scene in the ‘80s, Sook-Yin Lee has never done something quite as unique — or as uniquely personal — as her third feature. In adapting the 2011 graphic novel by her former romantic partner Chester Brown, she puts her stamp on an eventful period in her history during the 1990s. Unhappy with her work as a VJ for a music-video station much like MuchMusic (for whom Lee was indeed a very public face), the director’s fictional alter ego Sonny (Emily Lê) pursues new romantic connections even as she hopes to sustain her current one. Meanwhile, Chester (Daniel Beirne) conducts an odyssey of his own through his encounters with sex workers, a journey that elicits provocative questions about labour, freedom and desire. Funny, daring and astute, Lee’s film maintains a playful sense of humour even as it lays bare potentially discomfiting truths about the things we want and how we go about getting them.