Directed by: Chad Hartigan
Distributed by: Vertical
Written by Anna Harrison
35/100
I’ll give “The Threesome” credit for this: I have never seen a rom-com—or any movie for that matter—set in Arkansas. This is not like “Annie Hall” or “La La Land,” where the glamorous cities on the coast become a main character; there are no visits to any iconic Little Rock spots, as far as I can tell, and you could transplant the movie to any midwestern city and hardly anything would change, but it lends a certain charm. Things feel more grounded when no one is driving among the palm trees or rushing in and out of the subway, like these characters could be your neighbors instead of the people you aspire to be. That, at least, is somewhat refreshing, even if it makes the setting a bit bland (no offense to Little Rock and all offense to Chad Hartigan, who seems not to care much about Little Rock). Then again, it’s not like “The Threesome” has much of a personality anyway. You would expect, given the movie’s title, that director Chad Hartigan and writer Ethan Ogilby would infuse a bit of spice or subversiveness into this story, but it’s all played disappointingly safe.
That titular threesome, far from being the climax (ha) of the movie, is only the starting incident. When we meet Connor (Jonah Hauer-King, dimples on full display), he is giving a rather uninspired toast at the wedding of his friend Greg (Jaboukie Young-White) and clearly mooning after sort-of-kind-of ex Olivia (Zoey Deutch). Olivia, an aimless and caustic waitress, claims she doesn’t want to entangle herself with Connor; when Connor chivalrously swoops in to save young grad student Jenny (Ruby Cruz, by far the most compelling of the main trio), however, Olivia’s jealousy becomes apparent. One thing leads to another, and soon the three find themselves in a little ménage à trois where the act of is left offscreen but the foreplay that we see is unsexy in a way that does not seem purposeful—or perhaps it is a stinging commentary on how unsexy sex really is and I was just too dull to see it, because Hartigan does seem interested in the more unsavory aspects of romance and the unglamorous consequences.
Because consequences abound in “The Threesome,” consequences that are chock-full of spoilers but which can’t be avoided when talking about the movie, so don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Three things happen in quick succession after Connor, Olivia, and Jenny’s fateful night: one, Connor and Olivia realize they should stop pussyfooting around and actually get together; two, Olivia becomes pregnant; and three, Jenny shows up at Connor’s door and announces that she is expecting his child. And so, all at once, their lives implode.
Hartigan and Ogilby’s impulses to let the mess unfold without frills or sanitization is an interesting one, and Sing Howe Yam’s cinematography is innovative enough that even the vistas of Arkansas or Olivia’s shitty apartment become interesting to view. But “The Threesome” is neither that romantic nor that funny, and when he tries to examine that mess, things get… weird, and not in an interesting way, largely because of the looming specter of abortion.
If “The Threesome” were a bolder movie, it would commit to some sort of viewpoint. As it stands, Olivia waffles about getting an abortion (and her relationship with Connor) while Jenny gets called anti-abortion for deciding that she wants a child, and all the while Connor moans and gripes about how impossible his life has become now that he’s knocked up two women. Olivia even goes so far as to drive to another state, referencing Arkansas’s strict anti-abortion laws in a line clearly meant to acknowledge how liberal and “with it” the Hartigan and Ogilby are but which comes off as self-congratulatory and shallow, with no real examination of how those laws might affect women other than having to drive a few extra hours to get to a Planned Parenthood. Connor, meanwhile, claims he won’t pressure Olivia one way or another and then proceeds to wiggle his way into her appointment and talk her out of her abortion all the while complaining about Jenny’s keeping the baby.
The most interesting thing that happens is Olivia pointing out that Connor will get treated like a god among men for impregnating two hot babes but she and Jenny will be pariahs for becoming pregnant at the same time by the same baby daddy, but this is conveniently swept under the rug and not touched upon for the rest of the movie. Worse, many of Jenny and Olivia’s understandable reservations are used simply as fuel to the fire of Connor’s angst, who then makes his problems the center of the story.
“The Threesome” winks and nods to how children will uproot the lives of the mothers (how will Olivia—a waitress—pay for her bills, how will Jenny finish grad school, what are their goals outside of motherhood?) because it’s a movie that understands, you see, but it never dares to explore any deeper because, presumably, Hartigan and Ogilby have no real inclination to think about the consequences. That wouldn’t be very romcom of them… except that, as I said, it’s not even that romantic and it’s not even that funny, so what are we left with? An unsexy, unromantic, unfunny, politically uninterested and potentially even regressive movie, with two unlikable leads (Jenny innocent) and a sense of inflated profoundness that even a brief supporting turn from Josh Segarra can’t save. In short, by the time “The Threesome,” ahem, finished, I was left unsatisfied.
“The Threesome” Trailer
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