Quid Pro Quo

Movie about an odd, underground segment, the intellectually passive version of Cronenberg's Crash. People who want to be crippled from the waste down and confined to a wheelchair.

It is more than that. It's set within a mystery as to whether a radio reporter is getting lured into a trap or fake story. And unlike Crash, there's no drug connection. It's more psychological, but equally dark, simply without the ambiance and style that Crash had.

The downside is that some of it seems too setup and the story under-developed. The result is that it seems less like a theater film and more like a TV movie, but worth watching.

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.

I'm not gonna summarize what this film's about (cuz if you got this far you probably know---B.I.I.D.)

What I will say is that the other posters are right, if you like the work of Cronenberg (especially "Crash" and "Dead Ringers"), but are disappointed with the Canadian filmmaker's more recent mainstream forays, you def. need to check this out.

The other reason to see it is Vera Farmiga, an actress who has been working in the shadow of Cate Blanchett for years now, and who here takes on a role that Blanchett wouldn't dare touch.

Underrated.

I liked "Quid Pro Quo," a LOT. Do NOT be put off by the subject matter; that's just "local color" for a good, old-fashioned mystery, one that opens up" into not only revelation, but self-revelation. For those who like mystical mysteries, it's even got a pair of magical shoes that perform miracles.

The film is what it is not only because of a masterful script, but because of two actors who basically eat the screen with fine performances -- Nick Stahl and Vera Farmiga. Stahl plays a public radio reporter who is semi-paralyzed; the accident in his youth that killed his parents left him in a wheelchair. He gets a tip from an anonymous woman that at a local hospital, a man recently walked in and tried to bribe one of the residents to amputate his leg. Following up on it, he finds that not only is it true, but that there is a subculture out there that *envies* those in wheelchairs, and wants to become like them. They call themselves "wannabees," and have been known to cripple themselves or have others do it for them so that they can live their "inner dream" of being confined to a wheelchair themselves.

His investigation leads him to a mysterious and beautiful young woman, played by Vera Farmiga in a performance that is going to get her a LOT of work in the film biz. She's tremendous -- innocent, sexy, conflicted, and at every turn of the plot the person who leads Stahl's character deeper and deeper into his investigation of why on earth someone would *want* to be confined to a wheelchair.

It's a great flick, by a first-time writer/director, someone who IMO is To Be Watched. Highly recommended.

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.