Paying For It
Sook-Yin Lee (Shortbus) adapts her own ex-boyfriend’s welcomingly tender, autofictional graphic novel, centering on a Toronto-based cartoonist who begins hiring sex workers when he and his partner break up but decide to keep living together.
Director Sook-Yin Lee scheduled to attend.
Tickets
Select showtime for pricing and tickets.
Saturday, May 17, 2025
- Limited Availability
- On Standby
- Matinee
Sunday, May 18, 2025
- Limited Availability
- On Standby
- Matinee
Chester (Dan Beirne) is an introverted cartoonist-writer. Sonny (Emily Lê) is a host for an MTV-style Canadian television station (it’s 1999). They love each other a lot. When Sonny wants to open up their relationship, Chester is taken aback but quickly accepts that loving Sonny means giving her the room to love other people. Paying For It follows the partners over a three-year transformation of their relationship. Chester comforts Sonny through breakups, and Sonny grapples with Chester’s approach to being open: hiring sex workers with whom he seeks ongoing friendships. As the two drift apart, each makes an unexpected realization about their ideal romantic arrangement, but their love for each other never fades, just changes. Paying For It is stunning in its authenticity; the film depicts alternative relationship structures and types without moralizing, instead cherishing the evolution of Chester and Sonny’s love at each stage. This is not to say that no conflict is present in the film. Betrayal, judgment, and hurt regularly rear their ugly heads, resulting in a refreshingly honest portrayal of two people shaping their lives along the unconventional lines of their unique desires.
—Angel Cetorelli
- Director: Sook-Yin Lee
- Principal Cast: Emily Lê, Dan Beirne
- Premiere Status: US
- Country: Canada, USA
- Year: 2024
- Running Time: 85 min.
- Producer: Matt Code, Sonya Di Rienzo, Aeschylus Poulos
- Screenplay: Sook-Yin Lee, Joanne Sarazen
- Cinematographers: Darrell Wonge, Gayle Ye
- Editors: Anna Catley
- Music: Dylan Gamble, Sook-Yin Lee
- Website: Official Film Website
- Filmography: Death and Sickness (2020), Octavio Is Dead! (2018), Year of the Carnivore (2009)
- Language: English
- Format: DCP
- US Distributor: Film Movement
- International Sales: Loco Films