A Fotomat clerk named Leila (Lauren Lee Smith, from the Showtime series The L Word) takes a break from masturbating in front of porn on her sofa to cruise Toronto’s Queen Street in search of carnal adventures. In breathy voice-over, she states that men walk the city streets like they own them, so why not her?

Leila barges her way into a party and snares the attention of David, played by Eric Balfour, the actor who got his mug stolen by Leatherface in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake. Pretty soon, they’re making eyes outside while each of them fuck their respective partners of the evening. Not long after, they have a date on the floor of his apartment.

In the moments of film when the heavy breathing stops, Leila realizes that David is an artist, and wants something more from her than meaningless sex. This is evidenced in the way he cares for his ailing father (veteran actor Don Francks), one of the more interesting features of the film. Leila’s personal quest for satisfaction is further disrupted by news that her parents are divorcing. Something inside Leila is gnawing away at her (her words) and she’s determined to find out what.

Directed by Clement Virgo from a script he adapted with partner Tamara Faith Berger from her erotic novel, Lie With Me wants badly to be Last Tango In Paris, or maybe even a femme version of Taxi Driver, with a young, promiscuous and emotionally wacked out woman on the streets, looking for love in all the wrong places.

Having directed episodes of Soul Food and The Wire for the small screen, Virgo made sure his movie looked good. Shot in twenty-one days on Super 16 - the same film stock Hustle & Flow was made with - Lie With Me has a low down, flexible look that fits the material perfectly. The city of Toronto - typically shown as overcast and somber - is used here during the dog days of summer, casting a warm glow over the characters and offering some nice Canadian scenery in the process.

Virgo also reduces the dialogue, creating a raw energy that worked as far as the sex scenes. But the loose, natural feel of the film is in wacky contrast to the script, or lack of a script. What material there is here is dead above the waist. Despite the nonstop sex, and the willingness of Smith and Balfour to throw themselves into it with full frontal nudity, neither of their characters are allowed to relate to each other on anything but a superficial level. Great for porn, not so great for your soft core art film.

The characters are not developed at all. When Leila does speak, it’s in that pretentious, annoying voice-over on loan from a Terrence Malick film. Why this woman is running the streets, who she really is or what she’s looking for is never really a going concern. Smith’s character doesn’t possess anything in the way of wit or personality, so I could have cared less about seeing her find herself.

As a model-actress, Lauren Lee Smith is definitely attractive, so I enjoyed that, but at the same time, expected the movie to be a little more fucked up, or to throw more surprises at me than it did. In the end, it’s pretty much a brain dead romance. It didn’t bore me - there are too many good looking naked people in it for that - but I wouldn’t recommend anyone go out of their way to track it down either.