Repetition seems to be a key belief in creating a Hollywood success.
When a film captures the attention of audiences, the film industry will aim to identify key elements and attempt to recreate them in order to have a success of their own. What this actually leads to is an increase of generic films which remind viewers of the last great film to be released because key ideas have been recycled and unsubtly inserted into their own. This repetition of ideas is especially apparent in genre films such as horrors – where the terror is given new victims or inserted into a new location for sequel; and romantic-comedies – rather than creating a sequel, it will be the same story but with changes to name, time and location.
However, what can happen alongside films throwing the genre rules out the window and creating something wholly original like ‘500 Days Of Summer’ is the embrace of clichés as a vehicle for original ideas. Using the hypotheses introduced in ‘When Harry Met Sally’ of whether men and women can be friends, ‘Sleeping With Other People’ uses romantic-comedies tropes to answer this for modern audiences.‘Sleeping With Other People’ follows Jake (Jason Sudekis, ‘Horrible Bosses’) and Lainey (Alison Brie, ‘Community’). Twelve years after losing their virginity to each other, the two reunite at a sex addiction meeting with each carrying baggage filled with emotional issues. Jake compulsively cheats on partners as a means of not having to be the dumper, explaining his cheating ways with the logically constructed arguments of a narcissist. Lainey, on the other hand, has trouble keeping faithful due to her devotion to the object of her desires who has made her his mistress, Matthew (played by a creepily-moustachioed Adam Scott, ‘Parks And Recreations’). The pair begins a friendship which they actively try to keep platonic with a safe word, not wanting to ruin it like other relationships they’ve had in the past. While their friendship helps both with their recoveries and grow as people, they have to decide whether they are just friends or more.
The film shows a very heavy influence from the previously mentioned ‘When Harry Met Sally’, with much of it dedicated to showing the leads maintaining a friendship despite their history as each other’s first sexual partner. The familiar elements appear throughout, from the cute way they meet to the married friends who seem to be experts on love and ask why they haven’t gotten together (played by Jason Mantzoukas and Andrea Savage, who also have a hilarious improvised scene to stay through the credits for). There is also a heavy debt to the television series ‘How I Met Your Mother’, dialogue-heavy with pop culture references and an open attitude towards sex. It may even exceed in its sexual openness, with some of the verbal jokes being very far on the raunchy side, including a memorable scene demonstrating female masturbation on a bottle. The jokes are quite crass and not for the prudish, though they are highly-funny and some quite clever; with Jasons Sudekis and Mantzoukas showing an expertise in the smuttier lines. The dirtiness coupled with the charm the actors exude makes the characters even more enjoyable.
Inserting smut into a romantic comedy is nothing new, with ‘There’s Something About Mary’ still being the high-mark of this. What ‘Sleeping With Other People’ does offer is lead characters who are charming, yet flawed. Panic attacks, sociopathy and sex addiction inserts mental illness into the genre, showing disorders are as common in the modern world as iPhones (there are a lot of scenes involving iPhones). It’s a shame it wasn’t a theme that was explored more; this may be due to mental illness being more associated with depressing dramas, such as the sex-addiction picture ‘Shame’. This is the second feature film from writer-director Leslye Headland, who previously helmed the similarly troubled-persons focused ‘Bachelorette’, hopefully likably-flawed characters will be explored further in the future.
While it does follow the generic rom-com blueprint, ‘Sleeping With Other People’ does insert some originality and charm among the formulaic, with splashes of filth that keep it amusing for its running time.
Three out of five defiled bottles.
