How entertaining? ★★☆☆☆
Thought provoking? ★☆☆☆☆ 27 November 2015
This a movie review of SLEEPING WITH OTHER PEOPLE. |
“Whose juices have I been tasting?” Sam (Adam Brody)
It was a shame writer-director Leslye Headland’s BATCHELORETTE did not break out. Her misanthropic characters were even bolder than those in rival BRIDESMAIDS. Maybe realigning her sensibility to encompass market forces has caused a conventional, throwaway romantic-comedy? Whatever the reason for dilution of Headland’s previous bite, SLEEPPING WITH OTHER PEOPLE is annoyingly predictable. Fellow fans of the filmmaker’s debut, unaware of the tired formula, might be on edge, holding out for something akin to THE BREAK-UP: A bittersweet ambiguity. Why do mainstream rom-coms constantly think satisfaction must be had utilising the same conclusion?
It was a shame writer-director Leslye Headland’s BATCHELORETTE did not break out. Her misanthropic characters were even bolder than those in rival BRIDESMAIDS. Maybe realigning her sensibility to encompass market forces has caused a conventional, throwaway romantic-comedy? Whatever the reason for dilution of Headland’s previous bite, SLEEPPING WITH OTHER PEOPLE is annoyingly predictable. Fellow fans of the filmmaker’s debut, unaware of the tired formula, might be on edge, holding out for something akin to THE BREAK-UP: A bittersweet ambiguity. Why do mainstream rom-coms constantly think satisfaction must be had utilising the same conclusion?
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Opening in 2002, at Columbia University, Jason Sudeikis’ Jake is meant to pass as a student (the actor is currently 40 years old). Even attempting boy band hair, there is no escaping that unbelievability, even with a repeated reference to him being an “old student”. Not that Sudeikis is not young looking, but what is the point of this ill thought out prologue? The commencement is lacklustre and unnecessary, where Jake and Lainey (Alison Brie) meet for the first time by happenstance and lose their virginity together and then part ways. A mark is meant to have been branded into their hearts, except when we meet them present day they are shallow sh*ts devoid of chemistry when they bump into each other at a sex addiction support group. Is the scenario meant to amuse? The laughs are few. Their backstories add little.
Jake is a serial womaniser, as nearly as emotionally brutal as Ashton Kutcher’s Nikki in SPREAD, while Lainey (who is constantly correcting pronunciation of her name, because of a bizarre dislike of people quoting THE GRADUATE) regularly cheats on her boyfriend with a guy she is addicted to, Matthew (Adam Scott). Typical best friends, of each, tell them to get together, instead they become sub-sub-sub-WHEN HARRY MET SALLY buds. For current genre deftness, see TV shows CATASTROPHE and MASTER OF NONE.
Sexual tension is clumsily created, e.g. They go underwear shopping for Lainey, where she proceeds to walk out of the changing room for Jake, and the audience, to ogle. (The camera loves Brie.) Will they-won’t they. Yawn. Also, what is up with their careers? Jake is some sort of mega successful vague tech dude. Lainey is a kindergarten teacher suddenly going to med school a decade on from college.
What SLEEPING WITH OTHER PEOPLE does have going for it is the direction, which has real panache; from the frame rate speed changes admiring Lainey doing a dance routine, to a fight at a café that tracks like MEAN STREETS, this is skill belonging to a better movie. If the directors of SAFETY NOT GUARENTEED and KINGS OF SUMMER get JURASSIC WORLD and KONG: SKULL ISLAND respectively, then give Headland a blockbuster already.
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