Kimber Myers
At first, The Threesome plays like a straight male fantasy of the sex act of the title. A guy gets doubly lucky, simultaneously scoring with both his long-time crush/one-time fling and an equally hot woman he just met. Then things supposedly get real when they both tell him they’re pregnant. You’d think reality would set in with those revelations, but The Threesome still feels like it’s simply some dude’s daydream about what would happen if two women would want him at the same time. I’m perhaps being a little reductive about this movie that has some charming moments and is theoretically what I’ve been asking for — more big screen rom-coms, please! — but it kinda feels like I wished on a monkey’s paw, and this is all I got.
In The Threesome, both the rom- and the -com elements feel lacking — despite the efforts of a mostly strong cast and a bloopers reel in the final credits, which feels like the wrong fit for the 110 minutes of dramedy that preceded it. Director Chad Hartigan is known for making thoughtful, relationship-driven indies like Little Fish, Morris from America, and This Is Martin Bonner. While The Threesome is more comical by nature, this isn’t the type of movie that necessitates a collection of mildly funny mess-ups.
The romance and comedy might have worked better if it weren’t for Connor Blake (the man at the center of the love triangle) and Jonah Hauer-King (the actor who plays him). Connor is mildly sensitive and blandly attractive, the type of young guy that plays the guitar and makes a playlist for an abortion roadtrip. It’s easy to see why Olivia (Zoey Deutch) is initially ambivalent when he shows up at the Little Rock restaurant where she works. She’s bristly and bang-y (I’m talking about her excellent haircut, you perverts), but she’s intrigued when she sees Connor talking to Jenny (Ruby Cruz), a very cute customer. After some flirting and dancing at a second location, all three head back to Connor’s place, where there’s an inevitable game of Truth or Dare and an equally inevitable (given the title) threesome.
From there, The Threesome sheds light on the complexity of modern coupling (especially when there’s a pregnancy or two involved), largely focusing on Connor with some scenes sharing Olivia’s experience. Jenny feels more like the third wheel in both their relationship and in Ethan Ogilby’s script. Yet because Connor is such an uninteresting, selfish character played by an equally dull actor, it’s hard to want him to end up with either woman. No one’s really well developed in The Threesome, but both Deutch and Cruz flesh out their characters through nuanced performances that make them feel like real people — and real people who deserve so much better than this very basic guy. Connor’s gay best friend, Greg (Jaboukie Young-White), may mostly be there as comic relief, which he provides thanks to the delightfully dry delivery of Young-White. However, even he feels like more of a person than Connor, who we’re ostensibly rooting for.
With multiple pregnancies where women have to make life-changing decisions, The Threesome says all the right things to seem pro-choice, and it is on the surface. There’s a throwaway line lamenting how you can’t have an abortion in Arkansas and so you have to travel across state lines to have a quick medical procedure. Yet there’s something weirdly conservative about it all, particularly in how Connor attempts to persuade both women on whether they should have the baby or not (depending on how he feels about each one and how it impacts his life). It’s a symptom of the movie’s larger problem; Connor—its weakest character played by its weakest performer—feels like the only one who is supposed to matter here, with both Olivia and Jenny only seeming to exist in connection to him.
C
“The Threesome” is in theaters Friday.
