If you're still coughing up fumes from Amy Schumer and Judd Apatow's reactionary Trainwreck, you could do a lot worse than clear the air with a whiff of this livelier, less buttoned-down sex comedy.
Leslye Headland, director of the undervalued Bachelorette, isn't breaking much new ground here. This class of explicit sexual chatter could be heard in the work of David Mamet 30 years ago, and the structure of the gags is that of clever situation comedy. But Headland and her team take the ragged formulae and hammer them into something quite fresh.
The magnificent Alison Brie (so good in the TV show Community) plays Lainey, a kindergarten teacher coping indifferently with New York's sexual battlegrounds.
A prologue finds the protagonist clumsily losing her virginity to Jake (Jason Sudeikis) while at college. Years later they find themselves attending a “love addicts” meeting. Lainey’s particular addiction is Matt (Adam Scott), a gynaecologist who, despite an apparent charm deficit, has always known how to push her buttons.
Jake and Lainey talk through their problems. They compare romantic disasters. They become better friends. Who will eventual get with her? Who will eventually get with him?
You’re quite right. As conundrums go it does not bear comparison with the Riemann hypothesis. But is to Headland’s credit that she clearly appreciates the degree of solipsism that is going on. The film seems no more convinced by “sex addiction” than the average viewer will be, and it is quite prepared to cast eyes to heaven at the characters’ self-absorption.
Sleeping with Other People inevitably engages with modern variations on the dating game – communication by various classes of text, in particular – but it retains the easily digestible, well-tried shape of the classic romantic comedy.
The spirited performances by Brie and Sudeikis help nudge a familiar piece towards moments of comic transcendence. They spit out the reams of dialogue at pace, but never bury the punchline. I'd happily watch a remake of His Girl Friday with this pair.
