Henry (Zach Braff) is racing down a Montreal street in an American muscle car, and we can tell he\'s trouble. Not only is he using a cell phone while driving, he\'s shaving and smoking, too. Cut to Nathalie (Isabelle Blais), sulking at her baby shower because her husband is working late again and isn\'t paying her enough attention. Cut to Henry, dealing prescription drugs with a pharmacist\'s knowledge in bars and strip clubs (we see a glimmer of heart under those hard edges when he warns one of his clients to be careful). Back to Nathalie, alone and suddenly in labor, unable to reach her husband and struggling to the street to catch a cab. Back again to Henry, speeding the wrong way on Nathalie\'s one-way street toward the inevitable collision.
Writer-director Deborah Chow\'s The High Cost of Living (out on DVD) is a little like one of those late night ethical rap sessions. What would you do if you ran down a pregnant woman on the street and your car was an illicit pharmacy of ill-gotten drugs? If you\'re Henry, you\'ll start by calling for an ambulance from the nearest pay phone. But since Henry isn\'t too sure about confessing to the crime and assuming the consequences, his second step is to become the kind stranger as Nathalie\'s marriage to her emotionally clueless husband expires along with the death of their unborn child. He will offer her shelter, compassion and who knows, maybe they\'ll fall in love?
If The High Cost was an American indie, we might find the silver-hearted pusher a little hard to swallow, but given that this is Canada, a nation where civility probably prevails even among the criminal underclass, we can give it a pass. Chow\'s story manages to convey Henry\'s moral quandary while maintaining a queasy low level of suspense. A police investigation is dragging on at the speed of reality rather than the dynamic pace of “Law & Order.” Will he get found out? Will he confess? And what will Nathalie think if she learns that this nicest of all guys accidentally killed her daughter?
