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A Complicated, Messy Movie about a Complicated, Messy Situation

The sexy stuff is dealt with pretty quickly in The Threesome. That is neither a positive nor a negative thing, but it is indicative of what kind of movie this really is. It is not about sexual thrill or experimentation, the titillating novelty (in fact the very inciting incident is largely relayed through ellipsis -though the foreplay preceding it is effectively charged); it is about the dramatic physical and emotional consequences of an impulsive act that usually is portrayed as consequence-free. And that is a compelling and unique angle of approach from writer Ethan Ogilby, who uses the idea of a threesome as a jumping-off point for an earnest examination of relationship complexities.
The film stars Jonah Hauer-King as Connor, a sound engineer in love with Zoey Deutch’s Olivia, who has a flirtatious rapport with him but is hesitant to commit to a relationship. One night Connor is encouraged to charm a grad student Jenny (Ruby Cruz) after a date stands her up, and Olivia joins them. Dancing leads to drinking which leads to sexually suggestive games at Connor’s house and ultimately a threesome -in the aftermath of which Connor and Olivia begin a legitimate romance. And then Olivia learns she is pregnant. Shortly after, Jenny turns up again also pregnant.
Director Chad Hartigan walks a good fine line when it comes to the presumption of this kind of premise to moralize -whether on the subject of a sexually adventurous tryst or the option, ultimately not taken up by either woman, of an abortion. Because such an outcome could come off as an innately conservative cautionary tale about lives changed by sexual promiscuity. But the film never shames the threesome on its face and it has a responsible debate on the prospect of abortion -Jenny, partly due to her religious upbringing, is adamantly against it, but Olivia has a more nuanced process of consideration that the film makes clear is entirely valid, even if it might not be for her personally. All it is is a messy situation that the movie has the conviction to explore honestly.
And it’s not as simple as the two women having their babies separately. Connor feels responsible for both, even as his affections and hopes for the future are far more invested in Olivia. It’s a difficult thing for Jenny, whose conservative parents don’t the know the context of how this happened and expect the father to be in the picture. And for Olivia, beginning to solidify her connection with Connor, it is a complicated emotional wrench that he is going to have another child out there by another woman. As she articulates, the situation is a masculine bragging right for him, a mark of shame and pseudo-infidelity for her. None of it is conveyed in trivial terms, the gravity weighs on each of them, as new developments even arise from the circumstance, including the fact that Connor, Olivia, and Jenny are all pathological liars to some degree, Jenny holding out on telling the truth to her parents while passing Connor off as her boyfriend, Connor neglecting to fill Olivia in on the extents of his support for Jenny, and Olivia hiding from Connor a post-threesome fling with an old boyfriend in her initial period of anger over the twin pregnancies.
This aspect of the movie does nearly veer into farce a few times, and even as it avoids that format outright, such liar reveal devices do detract a little from the sense of realism that is otherwise conveyed. It’s an easy form of conflict and comic relief that the movie doesn’t need to stay engaging. And it has better comic relief in the form of Connor’s gay friend Greg (Jaboukie Young-White) constantly entertained by the mess and just as constantly trying to provoke more of it. There is some good tension that arises out of the device, particularly concerning Jenny and the secret she keeps from her parents, but in other situations it can resemble the hammy drama of soap opera.
Nevertheless, the performances are very good. Cruz is a nice revelation, after her enjoyable introduction in Bottoms, naive here yet affectingly sweet and vulnerable too as she relies on the support and comforts of Connor -even as he isn’t emotionally available to her. Hauer-King also is quite good in perhaps his best performance so far -playing Connor as something of a charming dweeb with an unabashed heart on his sleeve. His ethical need to do the right thing for Olivia and Jenny alike and his romantic notions about being a father are a bit stifling, but intentionally so. He’s very unlike the kind of figure you might expect at the centre of such a story as this, but Hauer-King sells his emotional integrity. Deutch however may be the best standout, her character undergoing a more complicated range of emotions and apprehensions. And from Deutch, all of it feels intensely real and resonant, even the rash choices that she makes in tha aftermath of the revelation. We see her go from keeping her feelings close, masking them as though out of a preservative instinct, to being as transparent and forthright as Connor -it is the clearest arc in the movie, Deutch handling its twists and turns with fervour.
She and Hauer-King also just have good romantic chemistry, though admittedly a chunk of that comes from the stirring ways it is illustrated by Hartigan in carefully edited music, lighting, and montage to maximize its sense of sweetness. Their dynamic does come across in performance, particularly in its subtleties, but Hartigan aptly fills it out with strong, considered choices in his filmmaking. One of his better touches is in the conversation between Olivia and Connor after she learns she is pregnant, and caught in the reflection of her mirror while the shot stays fixed on Connor, the gradual influence of his perspective is marked by him joining her in the reflection -the barrier separating them at long last closed. There are few particular long takes like this so it stands out, Hartigan demonstrating some distinct methods of conveying intimacy, and also alienation -such as when Connor is alone in the home of Jenny’s parents.
The last act goes a little out of hand as far as complications go though, especially one last twist that apart from again detracting from the movie’s otherwise solid reality, is not particularly handled well by the narrative -just a means of further wedging these characters but in a way that reflects a little more poorly on Connor in all honesty. Resolving this storyline (at least without steering into polyamory which the movie never seems in any way interested in) would be a messy affair regardless; still, the whirlwind of revelations and repurposed priorities at the eleventh hour disallows for a sense of real catharsis, and though the ending itself heals some of the wound it still comes off as overzealous for the sake of drama, rather than the film working through a more interesting resolution.
Still though I feel positive about The Threesome, about the performances and about its commitment to and often effective process of genuinely interrogating the notions of its concept in a good-faith way. A movie that is also warmly funny when it needs to be, and romantic in some of the right spots, in both a blissful and practical manner. For an era of ever more strange and complicated relationships, it is a good movie to have.

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