TIFF24 REVIEW: Paying for It [2025]

Rating: NR | Runtime: 85 minutes
Release Date: January 31st, 2025 (Canada) / January 30th, 2026 (USA)
Studio: Loco Films / Film Movement
Director(s): Sook-Yin Lee
Writer(s): Sook-Yin Lee & Joanne Sarazen / Chester Brown (graphic novel)

Jealousy isn’t natural.

I’m going to take things one step further than Suzo (Noah Lamanna) and say Chester Brown (Dan Beirne) is so agreeable that he’d give me a kidney without ever meeting him. We’re not just talking about little things he did while dating her friend Sonny Lee (Emily Lê). This guy barely pauses for a breath when Sonny tells him she’s falling in love with someone else and wants to know if she can pursue it. Chester not only agrees while reconfirming his love for her, but his words are genuine. And that’s not even the most surprising part of this ordeal. That honor goes to discovering the result is the best thing that could ever have happened to him.

It’s all documented in Brown’s 2011 graphic novel and now in Sook-Yin Lee’s cinematic adaptation (co-adapted with Joanne Sarazen) Paying for It. And who better to bring it into this medium than the woman Sonny was based upon? The two have remained best friends for every year since even though that initial question in bed ultimately led them to dissolving their romantic relationship. So, don’t therefore expect any bitterness to permeate these frames. This is the tale of two very self-aware adults who realized the love they shared with one another wasn’t predicated on sex or obligation. They honestly just wanted to see each other happy no matter what it took for that to happen.

While Sonny is crucial to the whole, however, this isn’t quite the two-hander you might expect. She’s a big piece in Chester’s life during this period, but we generally see her through his lens despite Lee providing her surrogate character a few scenes without him. Sonny is a catalyst and confidant. Chester is the focal point embarking on a journey towards sexual and intellectual enlightenment. Because while she begins to date a revolving door of men with the aspiration of being a couple, he starts to pay a rolodex of women with the sole goal of sex. What we discover in the aftermath is that it’s much harder to fulfill one’s emotional needs than it is to satisfy their physical desire.

Despite playing it for laughs in the beginning, the fact that Chester’s physical desires are about as vanilla as possible (a couple thrusts to completion and a wide grin of authentic thanks) becomes a key piece to this very sex positive puzzle. He’s not looking for festish work or an excuse to laud his own prowess. He has simple wants and the budgeted funds to achieve them with a variety of compassionate and professional women looking to sustain a livelihood. Chester discovers that he doesn’t care for the inherently compulsory side of relationships. It’s not that he doesn’t want to be there for people he cares about. He just doesn’t want to water it down with the thought that it wasn’t a choice.

Is that an extremely cynical way to look at romance? Yes. Especially considering Sonny is correct to admit how Chester is probably the most romantic person she has ever met. But it isn’t fake either. That’s a credit to the character that Brown, Lee, and Sarazen all had a hand in creating on the page (and in life where the former is concerned) as well as the performance Beirne provides to bring him to life here. Nothing about his actions or line delivery on-screen feels forced or caricatured. Chester is an even-keeled guy who knows his limitations and sees them as a strength rather than a liability. He’s quite frankly an easy guy to love.

We therefore know why Sonny lets him live in her basement while dating other men. And why Chester’s many escorts wish all their johns were more like him. When Yulissa (Andrea Werhun) reveals post-sex that she knows who he is and is a fan of his comics, she’s worried it might turn things sour. Because for a lot of men it would. Our society’s ingrained misogyny purports that “real men” shouldn’t need to pay for sex and “worthy women” would never sell their bodies. But Chester doesn’t ascribe to any of that rhetoric. He values these ladies and the service they provide. It’s precisely because of them that he’s grown more confident in his own skin.

Let’s face it: optics are everything. Suzo’s joke about Chester being easy going isn’t necessarily a compliment because the things he lets people get away with make him appear like a pushover (even to his trio of comic writer chums) in the context of a relationship predicated on certain culturally decided truths. Take those out of the equation, however, and he becomes a generous man to aspire towards. He goes from cuckolded loser to cocksure hero overnight precisely because he refuses to shy away from the reality that he gets all the love he needs from those he wants to hang out with when he wants to hang out. Sex is separate. They don’t have to mix.

As such, Paying for It doesn’t shy away from nudity or sex acts themselves. It’s both a sex positive film in terms of subject matter and content. So, if you aren’t as comfortable with the human form as Chester is, don’t be surprised if you find yourself feeling embarrassed while watching. But, like he says when he shares with Yulissa his idea to write a book about these experiences: watching might be exactly what’s needed to stop feeling embarrassed. Brown’s book and Lee’s film are meant to challenge the antiquated and oppressive norms with which our Puritanical indoctrination has branded us. It’s okay to break free. There’s no shame in being happy.