I’m always intrigued by Toronto-set movies showing at the Toronto International Film Festival. So it’s no surprise that Sook-Yin Lee’s adaptation of Chester Brown’s graphic novel Paying For It was instantly on my radar. Not only was the premise fresh – a man frankly documents his experiences meeting various sex workers and paying for sex – but the addition of a woman’s point of view was very much needed, I felt.
I previously read the source material and found the dour, black-and-white style and affectless expression of the eyeless protagonist (he always wears glasses) within the controversial memoir rather off-putting. Brown’s one-sided portrayal of these anonymous relationships also felt disappointing, like an unfilled promise of more interesting points of view about this under-the-table topic.
Lee’s version, thankfully, infuses much more context and humour to the story. Right from the start, viewers get to see multiple perspectives as Sonny (Emily Lê) and Chester (Dan Beirne) break up and begin pursuing new relationships: Sonny finds herself a series of bad boyfriends while Chester decides to give up on romantic relationships completely and just pay for sex instead. (In the graphic novel, readers almost never see or hear about Sonny’s personal life.) Lee smartly includes more female characters within both Sonny and Chester’s spheres and crucially allows the sex workers to speak for themselves to explain why they choose their line of work and why they stop.
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Sex work is, of course, still stigmatized by many characters, but also destigmatized by Paying For It as both the pretty side and the ugly side of the industry are shown. Sometimes Chester’s interaction goes swimmingly and everyone is happy. Sometimes the cops smash everything up and people disappear. There is also an awareness that each new situation that Chester walks into could be a huge disappointment, or worse, dangerous.
There’s a good amount of humour mined from both the absurdity and specificity of Sonny and Chester’s situation. While Chester is a pale, milquetoast cartoonist surrounded by other personality-filled members of the independent, underground comix scene in Toronto, Sonny is part of the cooler, grungier music industry as a Max Music VJ (in reality, Lee was a VJ on MuchMusic and worked for the CBC). Yet, they still have a loving relationship, amicably living together even after breaking up, which, of course, baffles other people.
Sex is also shown to be inherently funny as Chester’s transactional sex encounters occasionally show – it’s funny when people do it the first time! Sonny and Chester also playfully call each other out for having shallow preferences, which goes to show how comfortable they are, even when they are no longer dating. The film cleverly shows the parallels between Sonny and Chester: both are searching for better and more fulfilling relationships, albeit through different avenues.
In the end, the tenderness between Sonny and Chester shines through, despite their differences and unusual journeys. Lee’s sympathetic view of the many characters in Paying For It, including Chester’s comix friends and assorted sexual partners, offers an updated and more satisfying version of the 2011 memoir while also displaying a delightful snapshot of Toronto in the early 2000s.
