The Threesome is a weird writing exercise where a guy gets two women pregnant and boringly tries to redeem himself.
If you only have time to see one romantic dramedy, see Love, Brooklyn. If you only have time to see one dramedy with a third wheel narrative thread, see Twinless. And if you want to see the edgiest, funniest comedy of the year, see Splitsville. If you don’t mind waiting until the last twenty minutes for the plot to raise your pulse in this love triangle, The Threesome is here for you.
Connor (Jonah Hauer-King) only has eyes for his childhood crush/former coworker Olivia (Zoey Deutch). At the urging of a friend, he flirts with restaurant patron Jenny (Ruby Cruz) to make Olivia jealous, and it works so well that they wind up in the titular sexual activity. That results in pregnancies, plural, with Jenny and Olivia now expecting and Connor trying to do the right thing for both of them.
Boring baby daddy.
Photo Credit: Vertical
Connor spends the near two-hour runtime as a blank slate. Much of the character’s charm rests on Hauer-King’s good looks, dimples, height and charm. Fine features, but not so helpful when he played the most forgettable person in the already-forgotten I Know What You Did Last Summer reboot. When introduced, he’s proven to be a good guy because he’s the best man at a same sex wedding and hugs his best friend, who is a man of color, to boot. He’s one of the good hetero cis white men, y’all. He loves his mom, and his dad ditched him as a child. Then he’s alone at the wedding, which is supposed to elicit the subconscious response, “He is such a handsome man. He should not be alone.”
It’s one of those underwritten plot points that says just because he’s decided to love Olivia, moviegoers are supposed to root for them to get together. If you can just go with it, that might help. Connor is most endearing when he sings and plays the guitar because it’s evidence of some interiority. In another era, this role would go to Paul Rudd.
The script twists itself into pretzels to keep him blameless of any side-eyes and mostly succeeds. One non sequitur scene contrives to have Olivia outside with no coat and visibly cold just so he can take his jacket off and give it to her. Kevin (Josh Segarra) seems to exist just to make Connor look good in comparison and throw a wrench in the mix. He’s the real creep that Connor is trying to avoid becoming, and Segarra’s onscreen sequence is one of the funnier bits in The Threesome.
The lady(s) in my life.
Photo Credit: Vertical
Olivia is rich in snark and poor decisions, but just because Deutch can deliver a line with aplomb doesn’t mean her character’s schtick isn’t boring. Olivia is the kind of person who suggests the adult playdate, then blames Connor for the ensuing chaos when he was pitching for monogamy. Rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat. The only time that Deutch gets to be a real person is a trip to Illinois when the reality of her situation hits, and her resolve against Connor, the pregnancy, and figuring out a complicated situation waver. Not so fast! There must be tension regarding which woman gets the rose with Olivia pushing him away, and Jenny making a hard sell.
Jenny gets stuck with the short end of the stick and thinks of pregnancy as a punishment. Plot twist: turns out that she’s conservative, which means wacky, screwball hijinks with Connor and Jenny lying to her family so she can get through pregnancy in secret. It’s such a predictable setup with her father (who happens to own a healthy collection of shotguns) as the personification of the other shoe waiting to drop. Cruz must have gotten whiplash playing this part. One minute, she sounds like an Afterschool Special of what a good girl sounds like, and the next she sounds like she’s recycling lines that Deutch was supposed to deliver. Poor Jenny only gets sloppy seconds.
A group effort.
Photo Credit: Vertical
The Threesome often mistakes snappy lines and sexual situations for substance. The dialogue from writer Ethan Ogilby occasionally signals that it’s 2024 with talk of Venmo and PayPal when addressing financial logistics for abortion or the legal hoops that people jump through to get health care. As a whole, it’s window dressing and feels like recycled bits from a standup routine or a Judd Apatow comedy. Olivia deserves a better movie that treats her like a real person and explores her penchant for self-sabotage. Instead, it must be about Connor. Olivia could’ve had the journey where she changes over the course of a movie like a real protagonist. Nope, still Connor’s story. According to Dickens logic, the best protagonist only has things happen to them while remaining the same rosy-cheeked, wide-eyed person at the beginning of the journey. Maybe the script needed a Miss Havisham.
Director Chad Hartigan and editor Autumn Dea deliver the best punchlines with the camera movement and decision to cutaway to Jenny’s reaction to Connor and Olivia’s griping. They’re doing all the heavy lifting for broad material that elicits no laugh out loud moments. Connor seems to say the most inappropriate things in front of Jenny and cutting away abruptly is funnier than the actual line or waiting for the rest of the reaction. Wait for the musical instrument segue, which may tickle your fancy. A poignant sequence contrasting the baby mamas’ willingness to accept Connor’s help and their differences does more than the truck load of back and forth. That humorous Segarra sequence contains all ingredients of acting, composition and framing. Hartigan and Dea are the magic behind this laugh factory.
The bottom line.
The Threesome is like The Gift of the Magi meets The Bachelor with Connor facing a quandary. He can only get everything he wants out of life with the woman that he does not love. In the end, his willingness to walk a humiliation ritual gauntlet to be there for both of his children saves the film from feeling like a gerbil wheel of will they or won’t they for Olivia and Connor. That’s the real love story.
The Threesome is now playing in select theaters. Watch the trailer here.
Images courtesy of Vertical. Read more articles by Sarah G. Vincent here.
REVIEW RATING
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The Threesome - 6/10
6/10
Originally from NYC, freelance writer Sarah G. Vincent arrived in Cambridge in 1993 and was introduced to the world of repertory cinema while working at the Harvard Film Archives. Her work has appeared in Cambridge Day, newspapers, law journals, review websites and her blog, sarahgvincentviews.com.
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