This Beautiful City (2007) Reviews

• Forget the budget, notice the actors

  gbbetts2008-10-25

  This movie feels cheaply made, but considering its subject matter, it makes sense. The gritty cinema-verite style jumps back and forth between the lives of street workers and condo dwellers, gradually drawing these two worlds ever closer. Jump cuts and hand-held cameras work in this context. The best thing about the movie, and the thing that ultimately overcomes the poor filming, is the acting. Great performances by Aaron Poole (who is also the producer), Kristin Booth (from MVP), and Caroline Cave (from the L Word) create a genuine tension on screen. The story itself is clever, and the dialogue understated, but the acting borders on magnificent. Not only do they manage to create something riveting, but smart as well. The setting, the city, looks fabulous.

• Alas, disappointing

  groggo2009-03-02

  I really wanted this low-budget film to succeed, but it falls short in my opinion. It was filmed in the seedy section of Parkdale in west Toronto, and I loved the familiar street scenes. But this is a movie that seems to revel in its own misery. Writer/director Ed Gass-Donnelly calls the film 'dark,' but it's more than that: it's unpleasant in the extreme. ***SPOILERS There seems to be no space at all for the characters to go except down. Even the yuppie couple (the lovely Caroline Cave and handsome Noam Jenkins) descend into dissipation bordering on cliché. I wanted to root for SOMEBODY in this flick, but all the characters, with the possible exception of Peter (Stuart Hughes), as a cop on medical leave, insisted on destroying themselves. Five characters intersect around a Parkdale apartment building on Toronto's Queen Street West. One is a crack whore (Kristin Booth), who is hopelessly entwined with a tortured, crack-addicted dreamer (Aaron Poole). Through a series of convoluted mishaps, both characters become connected to Harry (Jenkins), husband of Carole (Cave), who herself gets connected to Hughes's cop, who himself is the father of Booth's character. It sounds more confusing than it really is. What I found really irritating about this film (the DVD at least) was the terrible audio, which required me to crank up the volume almost to maximum just to hear some of the dialogue. Low-budget film or not, the sound, of all things, should not sabotage a film. A really interesting aspect of the film is that the chain of events that leads to the break-up of a marriage, to death and the destruction of dreams, was an accident (or perhaps, director Gass-Donnelly seems to suggest, it isn't). In any case, Carole falls from her condo apartment, and her disfigurement from this mishap not only causes her marriage to fall apart but galvanizes the other events that lead to the characters becoming involved directly or indirectly in her plight. Life does in fact sometimes work that way. But even in real life, there is a hint of redemption. No one is redeemed in this film.

• low budget high level performances

  SnoopyStyle2016-09-29

  Pretty (Kristin Booth) is a prostitute and her boyfriend Johnny (Aaron Poole) is her pimp. Carol (Caroline Cave) and Harry (Noam Jenkins) seems to be a content couple. Peter (Stuart Hughes) is a cop working on a missing person case. In a Toronto apartment, Carol sneaks a cigarette on the balcony. She falls off. She lands near Pretty and Johnny, and they run off. Peter arrives to hold her hand. Did she fall or was it deliberate? Three months later, Carol comes home from the hospital. She reconnects with Peter who is leaving the police force for stress. Harry tries to help Pretty who has become strung out on drugs. Johnny is trying to get her to stop but gets caught up in a murder and is suffering health problems. This is a low-budget indie. The interconnected story can be disjointed viewing. What pulls it all together is five compelling performances. Booth, Poole and Cave stand out especially. They are top-notched worthy of every praise. The movie could use better style and better production. Writer/director Ed Gass-Donnelly is a newcomer with possibly something to say.