When writer-director Leslye Headland presented her second feature film, Sleeping with Other People, at the Sundance Film Festival, she described it as "When Harry met Sally for assholes". Turns out, that's an apt description.
Jason Sudeikis (Horrible Bosses) and Alison Brie (The Five-Year Engagement) team up in this raunchy comedy about a couple who meet at a Sex addicts Anonymous meeting 12 years after losing their virginity to each other at university.
Jake (Sudeikis) has become a loveable rogue who sleeps with people to get out of committed relationships, and Lainey (Brie) is a serial cheater who can't move on from her affair with an unavailable gynaecologist (Adam Scott).
Jake and Lainey hit it off but decide to keep their relationship platonic, while director Headland has fun spinning the premise of whether men and women can be just friends.The pair end up acting like a couple even though they aren't, but unlike other films in which the audience alone knows the characters are perfect for each other, they admit they're attracted to each other. Which means they require a safe word for when one of them gets excited; "mousetrap" seems to do the trick.
Headland's script is clever, for both its brash, fast-paced one-liners and because it borrows previous film ideas and repackages them. Jake's graphic description of how Lainey can pleasure herself harks back to the film Headland herself referenced, When Harry Met Sally. It's a different orgasm joke, but the honesty and shock value is the same.
But, surprisingly, for all the cool music and the clever pop culture references - from Game of Thrones to Aaron Sorkin - Sleeping with Other People doesn't stay with you. Jake and Lainey aren't the easiest people to root for and while the script is better written than most rom-coms the characters just aren't that funny. And Headland can't keep the edgy approach going, lapsing into a quite traditional rom-com treatment, (except, maybe, for all the sex).
The funniest and sweetest moment comes at the end when Jake and Lainey's married friends Xander (Jason Mantzoukas) and wife Naomi (Andrea Savage) deliver a hilarious spiel during the credits. It's a long time to wait to laugh out loud.
Movie: Sleeping with Other People
Cast: Alison Brie, Jason Sudeikis
Director: Leslye Headland
Running Time: 101 mins
Rating: R16 (Sex scenes, violence, drug use, offensive language)
Verdict: A smart, but not very funny comedy.