Shoot to Marry: Toronto Filmmaker’s Madcap Search for Love Yields Laughs… and Gravity

By Kim Hughes

Rating: B+

Brutally candid and frequently hilarious, indie filmmaker Steve Markle’s documentary Shoot to Marry, about his novel search for everlasting love — or more specifically, his search for marriage which may or may not be everlasting — is a balm for the broken-hearted and a great diversion with unexpected gravitas in its conclusion.

It’s also a cautionary tale about expectations and how we pile them on ourselves at our peril. What follows is equal parts quest and catharsis. We first meet Markle (Camp Hollywood) through home video as a goofy teen. In first-person narrative, sustained throughout the entire film, he explains that all he ever wanted was female companionship.

Now 42, and reeling from a bad breakup, Markle is despairing. And yet: “Why am I so eager to find my other half? I don’t even like the first half,” he tells his viewers, in the first of many zingers generously scattered throughout the film’s breezy 60-plus minutes. (Another classic: “I was hoping to be married before my next colonoscopy.”)

Encounters with Markle’s happily married parents, his therapist, and a matchmaker set the stage for what is next: his continent-wide search for a mate with camera in tow — a cover, if you will, for getting women to hang out with him — ergo the film’s title. In Los Angeles, New York, and hometown Toronto, Markle aims to meet The One all while chronicling his invariably clumsy romantic forays.

As might be expected in matters of the heart, the women Markle meets run the gamut from oddball (a former sex worker billed as Goddess who offers paid cuddle sessions) to wise beyond their years (a goth tattoo artist) to shattered and barely hanging on (Markle’s former crush, now unhappily married and parenting an autistic child).

There’s also artist Kate in L.A., whose very presence lights up the screen. Sympathetic Jade in New York adjusts the lens to permit reality into the frame, and kooky milliner Heidi has our man questioning the roles we play. Some forays are more persuasive than others. A visit to Toronto sex club Oasis is just silly, and an online search for “sexy women guns” results in Markle being frustratingly (though not surprisingly) stood up.

When Markle finally meets and eventually romances food blogger Erin, the film takes a turn that will be familiar to anyone who recalls Swingers and the point where a despondent Jon Favreau meets Heather Graham’s character and — bang! — just like that everything changes.

Shoot to Marry’s ending is more than just happy. It’s thoughtful, redemptive, and above all, gracious, rightly tipping the hat to the cast of female participants whose involvement amplifies Markle’s (and the film’s) true point: that love is elusive and often a monumental pain in the ass, but so very worth pursuing.

Shoot to Marry. Directed by Steve Markle. Premieres June 6, 9 pm, on Super Channel as the closing night film of The Canadian Film Festival.