Beastly Reviews: The Overnight
Get into the swing of things.
On the big screen, 2015 has been a sexual renaissance for straights. Fifty Shades of Grey, Magic Mike XXL, and Ex Machina all explored darker sides of hetero love and lust. But all pale next to The Overnight.
The Overnight is a film no one noticed — its best ad was a single-page article in Out Magazine — but its lineup is solid: Adam Scott from "Parks and Recreation," Jason Schwartzman, and Taylor Schilling from "Orange Is The New Black".
Its premise is enough to turn away shy moviegoers looking for a standard rom-com. From the pink neon trailer to the poster tagline ("Get into the swing of things"), audiences surmise it has something to do with swingers — and it does, sort of.
Alex and Emily (Scott and Schilling) just moved from Seattle to L.A. with their son AJ and they want to make friends with other cool, young parents. That very day in the park, they meet Kurt (Jason Schwartzman), a hipster L.A. dad with an implacable ego and subtly flirty mannerisms. They are instantly hooked.
Kurt invites the couple over for dinner that night, which happens without a hitch. After they put the kids to bed, the party keeps going and things get weird. A lot is funny. A lot is strange. After ten minutes of what can be called an extended penis joke, Alex, cursed with a small (fake) member, says, "For the first time in my life, I love my dick."
In that moment, it's not a joke. The film does something good: It talks to straight people in the audience, straight men in particular, and tucks some valuable lessons in between the laughs — lessons like, it's okay to want sex with people other than your wife, and it's okay to love your body and also have insecurities about it. And it's important, as a couple, to talk about these things. Because love, as The Overnight proves, is about more than sex, more than penises and pussies. It's a weird journey of discovery with someone you trust.
In this way, an awkward, dark comedy about newbie swingers becomes something meaningful — a takedown of toxic masculinity and a lighthearted argument for ethical non-monogamy. Odd fare for a standard date night, but hopefully it'll spark some good talks.
If you're gay, should you see it? Sure, because it's cute and odd, and because the laughs and kernels of wisdom apply to all. We live in a culture of toxic relationships, so it's nice to see a rom-com with recognisable stars suggest to the masses a new way to do things. Anyone who spends time in the world of non-traditional relationships (polyamory, kink, and the like) knows they're weird, and much discourse around them takes itself too seriously. Let's laugh at the absurdity of swinging, because all this stuff is funny.
There are many married couples with kids in the world and many of them are plagued by fears of infidelity. They want to be happy and satisfied with their partners but don't know how. This movie is a gentle way of addressing these things. It feels off-kilter and strange — parts have the tone of a psychodrama — because relationships are strange, and discovering new things falls somewhere between thrill and fear, comfort and discomfort, unnerving and erotic. That is The Overnight — a comedy about serious things, and buttholes.
Love, Beastly
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