Quid Pro Quo

Quid Pro Quo is a character study focusing on people who wish they were paraplegics or amputees, and their interaction with an actual paraplegic. The film's greatest attribute is its performances. Vera Farmiga and Nick Stahl both create excellent portrayals of their characters, with Farmiga's performance being particularly moving.

Although many reviewers have compared this piece to David Cronenberg's Crash, this movie is actually a far different work. Whereas the Cronenberg movie, like the J. G. Ballard novel it was based on, took a very cold, analytical look at its subject matter, this film delves into their psychology. It is a much easier film to engage with, and ultimately more rewarding as well.

The film is not perfect by any means. Its focus on sex as empowerment comes across as oversimplified and even vaguely insulting to the disabled. Furthermore, the plot developments that comprise the last ten minutes of the movie border on the absurd, and survive largely on the strength of the actors' performances.

Nonetheless, the film is well worth a watch.

This film is about a paralysed radio presenter who meets a woman who wants to be paralysed, with unexpected psychological results to both of them.

The initial hour of "Quid Pro Quo" is disguised as a fetishistic film about a woman who gets sexual excitement by living a paralysed life. it is a bizarre and incomprehensible topic which is likely to put people off. After looking beyond that, the film offers little to engage viewers. There is little to make people want to know what will happen to the characters.

The last ten minutes improve substantially, as the sudden plot twist shifts the focus from a fetishistic emphasis to a moving drama about guilt and conscience. If "Quid Pro Quo" could expand on the guilt and conscience theme, and tone down on the fetishistic theme, then it would be likely to have more success.

Set on the very fringes of underground society, Carlos Brooks' "Quid Pro Quo" is a humane and compassionate tale of non-handicapped people who have a pathological obsession with becoming either partially or totally disabled (or at least living their lives as if they were). In the most extreme cases, some will even go so far as to stage accidents, endure amputations or employ special drugs to turn their fantasy into reality. And, like anyone who's harboring a deep, dark secret from a critical world, these people are forced to live their lives in the closet, terrified that they will be rejected by those they care most about if they reveal the truth of who they really are inside.

Isaac Knott (Nick Stahl) has been a paraplegic since he was a teen, the result of a car accident in which both his parents were killed. He's now a reporter for a local radio station and it is through an assignment for his work that he meets a group of able-bodied "wannabes," as well as an attractive young woman named Fiona (Vera Farmiga from "Up in the Air") who desperately wants to live life in a wheelchair and implores Isaac to help her achieve that goal.

This quiet and gentle, though emotionally complex, film rises above its potentially tricky subject matter through insightful performances, sensitive writing, and a plot that nicely dovetails into itself in the second half. We discover that there's a great deal more to both Isaac and Fiona and their relationship than initially meets the eye, and those revelations go a long way towards deepening the theme and enhancing the characters.

QUID PRO QUO shows us that no matter how entrenched we are in our world view, there are always people who feel, with equal intensity, the exact opposite. Who would trade mobility for a wheelchair? Meet the characters in this film. QUID PRO QUO examines a psycho-sexual subgroup who feel that they are normal, but "trapped in a walking person's body". We are introduced to a paraplegic radio talk show host who meets a young woman who yearns to be disabled. This part is played by the radiantly crazy Vera Farmiga who rolls over Nick Stahl's staid NPR persona with willful glee. Farmiga injects a recklessly erotic element to this otherwise plodding script. She throws down a little MURDERBALL into this decidedly odd and weird universe, and as to why she is up to all of this? It becomes the strange trick-ending to this odd bit of fantasy. If you liked David Cronenberg's film, CRASH, you might enjoy this movie's nutty vibe.

This was probably the worst movie I have seen since The Arrival. And one of the worst films I have ever seen in my life. Having been suckered into renting this horrific piece of garbage, i left the movie experience feeling ill- literally. Horrible screen writing, atrocious acting, contrived bullshit plots, and unbelievable characters. Magic Shoes? Ginger Jake? Am I expected to believe that somebody who has been in a wheelchair for 20 years could just get up and start walking. Somehow I don't think the human body works that way. If they wanted to make a sci-fi movie maybe they should have contacted Spielberg. How could Vera Farmiga go from being in The Departed to being in this horrendous crap pile of a movie. She should shoot her agent. And anyone who liked this film should shoot themselves.