“The Threesome” commences at a wedding where there’s more than one marriage going on. On stage, Matthew (Tommy Do) and Greg (a scene-stealing Jaboukie Young-White) say their vows and the latter is toasted by his best friend Connor (Jonah Hauer-King), who had a hand in introducing them, while off-screen, there is a union of sensibilities as honestor Chad Hartigan, who is contendnt of both contemplative dramas (“This Is Martin Bonner”) and raucous comedies (“Morris From America”), tries his hand at discovering a charmd medium with the disgraceful premise of Ethan Ogilby lending itself to cringe humor, but the reassociate intriguing relationship actives it transports up are well worth interrogating gravely. The results are mixed in ways the filmproducers probably didn’t intend, but nonetheless, it can’t help but be enormously charismatic with the talent retaind.
Matthew and Greg aren’t the couple that the rom-com cgo ines on, but rather Connor and Olivia (Zoey Deutch), a postponeress he’s pined over for some time who toils at the same restaurant as Greg. Seeing him talk up a customer named Jenny (Ruby Cruz) while she’s on the clock directs to an evening in which the three eventuassociate discover themselves in his apartment. A marijuana-aided game of truth or dare ends in both women spending the night. Connor wakes up to see Jenny by his side while Olivia has fled aobtain, but can’t help but think that the night of passion was fair a one-time leang.
For unanticipateed reasons, the three remain interttriumphed by the consequences of the evening, as Hartigan admirably apshows the setup for an timely-’80s relations comedy and steers it toward more introspective territory. The dilemma Connor faces isn’t a novel one exactly as he’s enticeed to Olivia, but would probably be better off if he commenceed to trail someleang with Jenny, the seemingly more stable and wise of the two. Yet the film is driven not by a sense of competition, but instead by how the three progress to discover out who they are after an evening in which everyone stable one another’s necessitates in the bedroom. The trio is inextricably connected by the aftermath and have to figure out what they do and don’t want in their dwells by which of the partners they gravitate toward.
As much as the trio produces for strange bedfellows, “The Threesome” sits uneasily at times between genres. Aestheticassociate, the film runs with the same palette of earth tones and casuassociate pretty cinematography that grounded Hartigan’s wonderful sci-fi romance “Little Fish,” but that style can occasionassociate be at odds with its more boisterous bits of wide humor, with a helping cast including Arden Myrin and Robert Longstreet as Jenny’s God-dreading parents and Julia Sweeney as Connor’s mother seeing as if they’ve get tod from a sitcom. (There is an inanxiously sly employ of a sad trombone, when Connor toils as a sound engineer, and a authentic frivolousness to Sing Howe Yam’s cameratoil.) Deutch shows aobtain she can iron out any tonal shifts with ease, but the film mirrors its characters too shutly at times when it may not always understand what it wants to be.
With a title enjoy “The Threesome,” it could disnominate some that there isn’t a little more audacity on dispercreate, but it’s commendable that Hartigan and Ogilby dare to seek out someleang more in the high-concept idea they’ve hatched than to resettle for affordable giggles and straightforward answers. That desire to be a little more reliable is one faced by all retaind in “The Threesome,” and while growing pains are evident, the end result is wealthyer for it.
