Walk All over Me: A 2007 Dominatrix Roommate Crime Comedy

Walk All over Me is a 2007 Canadian crime comedy written by Robert Cuffley and Jason Long, directed by Cuffley, and produced by Carolyn McMaster. It premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, and The Weinstein Company bought it. The film puts a professional dominatrix’s life inside a crime plot. It is not a dungeon documentary. Costume, cash, and chaos keep thigh-high boots and paid domination in the frame. The story is set in Vancouver. Principal photography was in Manitoba.

Leelee Sobieski plays Alberta, a woman who leaves a small town for the city. Her roommate Celene, played by Tricia Helfer, used to babysit her and now works as a professional dominatrix, boots included. Alberta is broke, so she takes Celene’s bookings at the advertised rate of about $300 an hour. The joke and the risk are the same thing. She has the costume and the address-book swagger, and she does not have the negotiated skill.

The turn is her first client, Paul, played by Jacob Tierney. Paul says the cash he is holding came from a casino. Rene, Isaac, and Aaron break in believing he stole half a million dollars from Rene’s club. The interrogation gets rough enough that they knock him out. Alberta leaves with the cash, and the robbers now count her as part of the theft. She tells Celene. Rene, played by Lothaire Bluteau, tries to kidnap Alberta and loses the fight to Celene. Celene hauls him to a submissive’s house, then, because Alberta insists, puts on a nurse costume and goes to check on Paul herself.

The escape folds into a mess. At a mall food court Alberta tries to dominate Isaac, played by Michael Adamthwaite. It goes wrong. Isaac pulls a gun on a security officer, and security and the police take him down. Alberta steals his car and his glasses to find Celene. She hits the fence at Paul’s house. The bumper comes loose and shows that Isaac was the one who actually stole the club money. She takes that to Rene and Aaron. As it unwinds, Paul asks Alberta on a real date and keeps asking until she says yes. Back at the car, neighbors are already fixing the fence, so the two of them are not going to drive off with the stolen cash. At the end Alberta and Celene meet in a coffee shop. Alberta offers some of the money she grabbed as amends, and the roommates make peace.

The rest of the main cast: Aaron, an ex-convict played by Michael Eklund, is Isaac’s brother, and Spencer, played by Ross McMillan, is one of Celene’s regular slaves. On a BDSM film shelf the movie matters because it sells pro-domme work as high-heel employment a civilian can fake for a night, until a drawn gun, radiator bondage, and a failed power game in a food court show that it is not. Rotten Tomatoes sat around 40% from a small set of reviews, cult curiosity more than a critical favorite. The identity swap, Helfer opposite Sobieski, and kink looks driving a 2007 festival comedy are why it stays on the list. It is not a manual for a paid session.