This Beautiful City

2007

1 hr. 25 min.

Drama

List

14%

7 Reviews

Tomatometer

35%

250+ Ratings

Audience Score

The lives of five people intersect again three months after meeting due to a tragedy.

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Audience Member

Nominated for four Genie Awards...? Yeesh. This was a painful film to watch, and not in a good way. It tries to push some boundaries by finding commonalities between a "normal" couple and a junkie/prostitute couple, hinting at power dynamics in sexual relationships while giving you a window into destructive addiction and rehabilitation from what may or may not have been a suicide attempt. Drama by omission just doesn't work for me, and the main flaw is that the answer is clearly on film, just cut out; it doesn't leave you wondering, it just annoys you. The film's last third gets watchable, finally, when some of the threads start to come together, but it's too little, too late, and for the record, I'm getting really tired of the "Surprise, everyone in this movie knows each other!" ending (still more drama by omission). Yes, I spoiled the ending. With any luck, you'll not bother to watch it.

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

01/18/23

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Audience Member

I actually think the movie, despite its flaws, was well done. The story was interesting and draws you in coupled with some of the best actors Canada has to offer. What you get with this movie is not some typical Hollywood big budget film with happy endings and glossy portrayals of "real life." Rather, you get a peak inside the lives of these deeply flawed (or even disturbed) people as they try to live their lives. Once it's over regardless of how you felt about the film you'll think about the characters long after the film is over.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

02/23/23

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Audience Member

A jaded and depressing view of the city and the people that roam it.

Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars

02/15/23

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Audience Member

One of those movies with several characters who wind up connected in a highly implausible story. I actually tend to like that sort of movie, and this one has it's moments. Makes Toronto look very ugly, violent, and depressing, and populated with some terrible people. The city always has struck me as the opposite, but then I don't live there.

Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars

01/14/23

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Audience Member

This is easily one of the worst films I've ever seen. It was almost impossible for me to sit through, and it kept getting worse as it went. It's a great crash course on how not to film an ensemble drama, some characters are so underutilized you completely forget about them the next time they show up, and the plot concerning a paranoid, violent, directionless street person inexplicably takes over the entire film. The script is a ruin of non-sequiturs, the editing is full of infuriating jump-cuts and shaky-for-the-sake-of camerawork, and we seem to cut away exactly when a scene has a chance of becoming substantial. The conclusion is ludicrous, even considering what went before. I wish I could un-watch it.

Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars

01/30/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Finally, a movie that has even more sexual confusion than a junior high school.

Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars

02/16/23

Full Review

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Ed Gass-Donnelly

Director

Aaron Poole

Johnny

Kristin Booth

Pretty

Caroline Cave

Carol

Noam Jenkins

Harry

Stuart Hughes

Peter

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Gary Goldstein

Los Angeles Times

Gass-Donnelly tricks up this phony baloney with nervous camerawork and editing while also stranding his actors with scads of second-rate dialogue. A bad time is had by all.

Rated: 1/5

Aug 28, 2009

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Adam Nayman

L.A. Weekly

The only real notes of authenticity are struck by the actors, and even then, only on the distaff side.

Aug 27, 2009

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Robert Koehler

Variety

Gass-Donnelly's over-calculated, crisis-fueled script links yuppies, crack addicts and a cop, with few signs of its origins as the writer-helmer's stage play Descent.

Oct 18, 2008

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National Post

Rated: 1.5/4

Oct 18, 2008

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Jim Slotek

Jam! Movies

A movie that draws you in.

Rated: 3/5

May 23, 2008

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Synopsis

The lives of five people intersect again three months after meeting due to a tragedy.

Director: Ed Gass-Donnelly
Executive Producer: Lee Kim
Screenwriter: Ed Gass-Donnelly
Genre: Drama
Original Language: English
Release Date (Streaming): May 22, 2013