For all the movies and television shows shot in the city, it’s rare that Toronto gets to play itself on the big screen — and rarer still that it gets to look as good as it does in Young Werther.
In his first feature film, which premiered at TIFF last year and opens in theatres across Canada this Friday, writer-director José Avelino Gilles Corbett Lourenço transplanted Goethe’s 1774 novel The Sorrows of Young Werther to contemporary Toronto.
The melancholy tale of a young scion of privilege (Douglas Booth) determined to distract the flinty, self-possessed Charlotte (Alison Pill) from her commitment to upstanding lawyer Albert (Patrick J. Adams) is reimagined as a low-key farce that plays out in a city blooming with possibility.
“I wanted to present the Toronto that does exist, but in a slightly heightened way,” Lourenço said in an interview.
“Every location you see is the best it could possibly be — as if at any moment you could stumble upon Fort York in the middle of the night while there are fireworks going off.”
“That can happen, but maybe in real life that wouldn't necessarily happen right after the most perfect sunny day where your ice cream looked as delicious as possible,” the director added.
While shooting in and around the city, Lourenço and his crew chased a “very lush, romantic look.”
“We just wanted it to be gorgeous and handsome all at once.”
The set list
Young Werther plays like a tour guide for Toronto, with its hero popping up to court Charlotte in one picturesque spot after another.
“High Park, Roy Thomson Hall, Fort York, Dundas West, Union Station, West Queen West.” Lourenço said, ticking off shooting locations. “20 Victoria, the restaurant [where a crucial scene takes place], that’s one of my favourite locations in the film.”
Shooting was not without its complications.
A key scene of Werther and his cousin Paul (Jaouhar Ben Ayed) arriving at Union Station had to be reshuffled because the production’s dates conflicted with the opening of the station’s outdoor food hall — but they made it work.
“I loved filming there,” Lourenço said of Union Station. “It feels very grand and very established and European to me in a way that much of the city doesn't. That style of architecture in Toronto feels rare; so many buildings are newer, glass and steel, [so] it's nice to see something that situates the film in a world that feels more established, more sturdy and old.”
But there was one landmark that couldn’t be included in the film: Ontario Place, which had already been partitioned for redevelopment as a private spa when cameras rolled on Young Werther in the spring and summer of 2023.
“There was a scene that I always imagined as this gorgeous walk-and-talk tracking shot with Werther and Charlotte, with the Cinesphere and the water in the background, and we’d pull over and come in a little tighter on them,” Lourenço said with a sigh.
“I can still [picture] it: it was going to be one of the most beautiful shots in the film. We don't have too many super-identifiable, architectural pieces and landmarks [here]. We've got the ROM crystal, we've got the Cinesphere, we've got things that you see it and you're like: ‘That's specifically Toronto.’”
“It broke my heart that it was all fenced off and being torn down when we were shooting … but think of that parking lot. It’s going to be so big.”
A gelato overdose on St. Clair West
One very specific Toronto location captured in the film is Bar Ape, the gelato shop at St. Clair West and Rushton Road renowned for its inventive gelato bars and soft serve.
That day’s shoot had some logistical challenges — “you can’t really block off those streets,” Lourenço admitted — but there was one problem no one saw coming: an unlimited supply of soft serve.
“Douglas Booth has a tiny, almost child-sized cup of gelato in that scene, with a tiny little spoon,” Lourenço said. “And Doug, God love him, was not spitting out the ice cream after he was eating it. He would finish his cup, and when we'd have to do another take he would finish another cup."
"We’d change our setup or get three or four takes of Doug reacting, or put the camera on whoever's opposite him … and even in his reaction shots, even when he’s not on screen, he's rifling down that gelato.”
Every. Single. Time.
“Upwards of 30 little cups, for sure,” Lourenço says. “He ate so much of it that at one point he started to not be able to see. It was like he went gelato-blind — our medic had to come over and look at him. It was something to do with the amount of sugar that went into his system too quickly … Doug was like, incapacitated by gelato.”
“Such is his commitment to the role and to the craft,” Lourenço laughed. “And to the lemon swirl at Bar Ape.”
Young Werther opens in theatres across Canada Friday, Jan. 10, including at the Yonge-Dundas cinema downtown. Tickets and showtimes are available at Cineplex.com.
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Norman Wilner has written about entertainment and culture since 1988, most recently as the senior film writer for NOW Magazine. He currently hosts and produces the Someone Else's Movie podcast and publishes the Shiny Things newsletter.
