Looking for Leonard

Looking for Leonard is a Canadian crime comedy-drama film, directed by Matt Bissonnette and Steven Clark and released in 2002. Synopsis The film stars Benjamin Ratner as Ted and Darcy Belsher as Johnny, an aimless pair of brothers in Montreal who regularly commit small-scale crimes with the help of Ted's girlfriend Jo (Kim Huffman). Jo, however, is more ambivalent about the trio's lifestyle, and spends most of her time reading Leonard Cohen's novel Beautiful Losers while entertaining fantasies of meeting and running off with Cohen to lead a more fulfilling and interesting life. Jo then meets Luka (Joel Bissonnette), an immigrant from the Czech Republic whom she becomes smitten with and begins to date; one day, however, a confrontation between Luka and Ted leaves Luka dead, forcing Ted into hiding while Jo has to protect him by lying to the police that Luka was the aggressor and Ted killed him in self-defense. Production The film incorporates some footage from the 1965 documentary film Ladies and Gentlemen... Mr. Leonard Cohen. Clark described the decision to incorporate a Cohen motif in the film as symbolic, stating that "It grew out of that urban myth, where you'd hear people say, 'I saw Leonard buying smokes at the corner store,' or 'I saw Leonard womanizing at the bar'. It became an appropriate symbol for us. He's an icon, and our film relies on a lot of icons." Executive producers on the film included actress Molly Parker, Matt Bissonnette's wife, and filmmaker Lynne Stopkewich.