Paying For It, the live-action adaptation of Chester Brown’s best-selling graphic novel, “a comic-strip memoir about being a john”, co-written and directed by Sook-Yin Lee (Octavio is Dead! Year of the Carnivore) will have its world premiere in the Platform program at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival.
Paying for It stars Dan Beirne (Twentieth Century, Priscilla), Emily Lê (Riceboy Sleeps), and activist/author/performer Andrea Werhun (Modern Whore, Thriving: A Dissociative Reverie).
Set in the late 90s, Chester and Sonny are a long-term, committed, romantic couple. When Sonny wants to redefine their relationship, Chester, a shy and introverted cartoonist, starts sleeping with sex workers and discovers a new kind of intimacy in the process.
Paying For It is a work of cinematic autofiction, a comedy that is a kind of double-act of portraiture. Sook-Yin Lee, Chester Brown’s real-life ex, adapts his graphic novel memoir into a uniquely compassionate movie, especially in its handling of sex and intimacy. Paying For It is about love, sex, and non-monogamy for adults re-considering hetero-normative lifestyles. The film is an adaptation through a female gaze. Lee pushes perceptions around consensual sex work, allowing sex-worker perspectives to shine through.
The film is produced by Matt Code (See for Me, Mary Goes Round, the upcoming Young Werther), Sonya Di Rienzo (Brother, The Young Arsonists, the upcoming The Players), Aeschylus Poulos (Mr. Dressup: The Magic of Make-Believe, Brother, Sleeping Giant), co-produced by Natalie Urquhart (Suits, Stardust), and Sook-Yin Lee, and executive produced by John Cameron Mitchell (Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Shortbus, Rabbit Hole) and Dan Beirne. The screenplay is co-written by Lee and Joanne Sarazen (Backspot, Tammy’s Always Dying). Dylan Gamble (Hot Garbage) and Lee compose the original score.
Paying for It is produced by Wildling Pictures & Hawkeye Pictures with the participation of Telefilm Canada, Ontario Creates and in association with Bell Media’s Crave and CBC Films.
The fall will also see a re-issue of Paying For It in a new paperback edition from Drawn & Quarterly, with a cover by Brown inspired by the film adaptation, an introduction written by director Lee, expanded notes, movie stills, behind-the-scenes photographs, and artwork that Brown created for the production.