It’s a hard achievement in this day and age to make a movie for just five million dollars (two and a half million pounds) yet popular television network HDNet’s movie wing have been doing that quite successfully now for the last two years. Although specialising in documentary movies, they do occasionally make movies prime examples being Redacted, and Diggers; now comes very different tale in the form of Quid Pro Quo.

Enjoying his resurgence in popularity onetime A-Lister Nick Stahl stars in this enticing movie about a semi paralysed radio journalist called Isaac, who is recovering from the breakup of his relationship with the delightfully named Rain. Unlucky in the new dating scene, with potential suitors finding it difficult to adjust to his disability; Isaac decides to cool off on the idea of love and focus on his work. It’s at this point that he starts to receive requests from an anonymous e-mailer to the show, reporting that people are attending a hospital where for a fee surgeons will remove limbs. Intrigued and appalled by these claims Isaac investigates a strange culture where disability seems to be “cool”.

It’s at this seemingly unusual time that Isaac meets Fiona (Vera Farmiga) an able bodied woman who wants more than anything else to be paralysed from the waist down like Isaac, clinging to his disability she makes a momentous decision to come out about her illness (or fetish if you like), but it’s at this time that Isaac stumbles upon a pair of shoes that give him the ability to walk.  As both Fiona and Isaac go on a journey, it seems that the search for the mysterious Ginger Jake holds the secret to their happiness.

Quid Pro Quo is a most unusual movie, it was nothing expected and staggers in a direction that nobody could assume it would. The movie weaves its way in a strange contrasting fashion with essences of David Cronenberg’s Crash, and the best movies covering aspects of disability or addiction. You might think that a story that has aspects of limb removal in underhand methods is not your ideal family viewing, but believe me this is at times an incredibly touching movie that like other recent movies covers issues that are seldom addressed in the form of visual entertainment.

The focus on Isaac is incredibly well put together, looking at the way people in wheelchairs are discriminated upon, from issues of romance or down to the simple act of getting a cab. There is an awful lot of detail put into a short period of time that shows the plight of wheelchair bound people in an able bodied world. Despite the hardship however Isaac copes well with his lot, and to some degree seems far happier than the people that surround him.

A different dimension is added with the arrival of the flaky Fiona, a woman able bodied but desperately has the need to be disabled. Unlike Crash that focused on disability as fetish, Quid Pro Quo looks at this as an aspect of necessity in exactly the same way as a man want to be a woman or vice versa; who even dreamed that this sort of illness existed, but it actually does and according to a quick Google search is more common than you might ever believe. Through necessity or need if you like, there is a further dimension to Fiona, there is something hidden behind the already bizarre situation that never quite allows you the opportunity to warm to Fiona. While you feel sadness for Isaac, you feel more annoyed than anything else over Fiona. As the movie progresses this annoyance grows because her behaviour contrasts out of the unusual to the intolerable.

The most bizarre aspect of the movie however must rest in the magic shoes, while everything else in the movie is perfectly believable and stabilises you on the right side of clarity, out of the blue comes the magic shoes that provide the wearer with the power to walk. It’s almost like we have veered off into Wizard Of Oz territory. Now don’t go misunderstanding my views on this, the presence of the magic shoes does not weaken this movie, in fact it gives it some much needed elevation, and a further dimension for the story to take. For not only do the shoes effect the life of Isaac, but also of Fiona, and this forms the strongest aspect of the movies story; as does the final twist of the movie.

Nick Stahl performs remarkably well, but then he always has done; you have to ask what happened to Stahl the once touted “New River Phoenix” why did he fall from grace after signing on to lead the cast in HBO’s Carnivale. Stahl you suspect has spent much time researching the lives of paralysis victims, so much so if it were not for knowledge of the actors past it would be easy to believe (up until he walks) that the actor was indeed paralysed. Farmiga on the other hand is a different kettle of fish, yes she acts well but struck me that she was going for a poor man’s (or woman’s in this case) Patricia Arquette. No matter how hard you might try its incredibly difficult to warm to Farmiga, or her character and her plight.

Quid Pro Quo is an interesting movie, that allows a great deal of thought; it is something that is most definitely worth a look.