This Beautiful City (DVD)

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Ever seen a film that begins with a few different characters doing their own thing, and as it progresses you´re given the idea they may be closer related than you first thought? By the end, sure enough, everyone is linked somehow, and it all makes sense. In general, these tales are creative, sometimes innovative, and pieced together by clever minds with the skill to make them flow and thrive. The best recent example is probably "Crash," winner of 2006´s Best Picture Oscar. While "This Beautiful City," an upcoming release from Cinema Epoch, isn´t really on the same level, it takes the philosophy and applies it, along with some strong performances and a rough around the edges presentation, quite well to produce a solid product.

Smaller films like "This Beautiful City" sometimes don´t make it to the mainstream theaters. Well, okay, most times they don´t. It´s a darn shame, because there really is some good, less conventional stuff out there to be seen. Whether or not it would bring in the dollars most studios, writers, performers and other companies would love is a crapshoot, but I´m convinced that films play in one´s mind just as much as they do on big screens or DVD players. That´s what makes so many different, lesser-known things like this release good. It exposes a different mind than what we´re typically used to, and it´s a taste I liked, to be quite honest.

I wasn´t surprised to see that "This Beautiful City" brought home some hardware. It won two Association of Canadian Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA) awards for Best Actor and Best Actress, as well as Best Picture awards from the Phoenix Film Festival and the Rhode Island International Film Festival. It also took home the Special Jury Award for a Dramatic Feature Film from WorldFest Houston, and was nominated for four Genie Awards (the Canadian Oscars) after being chosen an Official Selection at the Toronto Film Festival.

The film is basically about five characters all struggling with demons that hinder their individual happiness. Each has his or her own pluses and minuses, and a little bit of what makes "This Beautiful City" work is guessing what those are, and finding out how close to or far from the bulls eye you were. No one gets off easy or without some despair in this story, and director Ed Gass-Donnelly has likely done this intentionally. There´s some commentary throughout on why some who lead one lifestyle are separate geographically from those who lead another, when in reality, these groups are closer emotionally and internally than they´d ever admit in public. It´s put there to point out just how hypocritical we all can be, and also how imperfect and blind.

Harry (Noam Jenkins) and his wife Carol (Caroline Cave) are wealthy enough to live in a downtown Toronto high rise and drive a fancy car, but both have a secret or two kept from the other. Harry´s job isn´t all that fun, and he appears to be struggling to find a purpose. Carol doesn´t like how Harry showboats his lifestyle for other wealthy friends they have, and one night after dinner, takes a fall off their balcony. She´s pretty badly injured, and heads to physical therapy and emotional rehab. Harry keeps working during this time, and their relationship begins to crack as Carol´s emotional instability starts to show.

Meanwhile, a prostitute named Pretty (Kristin Booth) and her pimp/boyfriend Johnny (Aaron Poole) are basically dragging through life. Pretty performs sexual favors for money, drugs or attention. Her body shows signs that life on the street is taking its toll, and has the visual scars, bruises and cuts to bear. Johnny looks out for Pretty as best he can, but he rolls with the wrong crowd and can´t seem to knock a serious health problem that´s probably resulted from many years using heroin or crack cocaine. They get high together, and even though Johnny doesn´t really want Pretty to know it, he too is prostituting himself to make a buck. Desperate people do desperate things more often than not.

Finally, Peter (Stuart Hughes) is an old school detective with age beginning to show. His relationship with his daughter has suffered, he can barely stay awake and he´s been forced to take a leave of absence from the force. He´s lonely, and looks for a woman to share his life with. He doesn´t seem happy or sure about who he is, let alone where his life is heading. Peter´s frustration with his past lingers into his present, and if not for what happens in this film´s concise 85 minute run time, may have crushed him.

After we meet everyone, we fast-forward three months. Harry and Carol have discussed divorce, while Pretty can´t get away from the business Johnny hypocritically tells her to stay distanced from, yet engages with daily. As it turns out, Carol finds stability in Peter, and the two gradually become romantically involved. Meanwhile, Harry sees Pretty giving herself to a paying customer one night, and the next day offers to buy her a meal instead of pay her for sex. Johnny is trying to work is traditional job, fight off a violent job gone wrong and fix his health.