Review: ‘A Good Old Fashioned Orgy’
It's hard to generate much enthusiasm one way or the other for "A Good Old Fashioned Orgy." This would-be sex comedy isn't quite scandalous enough to be shocking, and it's not warmhearted enough to be described as sweet or touching. And while it has an emotional core that was lacking in this summer's other R-rated comedies, the movie doesn't seem particularly invested in that, either. If "Orgy" was an album, it'd be background music you'd put on to pass the time while paying your bills.
The film stars Jason Sudeikis as Eric, an overgrown frat boy who loves spending time with his best friends (guys and gals) that he's known since high school at his dad's place in the Hamptons. They have themed parties, drink way too much, and generally do whatever they can to forget that they're not kids anymore. But when his father (Don Johnson, in the movie to appeal to aging hipsters who think Don Johnson is totally ridiculous) announces he's selling the place, Eric decides his pals need to have one more blow-out -- and that it should be a special private party for just them so they can all have sex with each other.
"A Good Old Fashioned Orgy" was written and directed by Alex Gregory and Peter Huyck, who were writers for Letterman and on "King of the Hill." Their script has one central idea -- Eric and his friends' plan for a big orgy is an "outlandish" way for them to come terms with the adulthood that's going to soon drive them apart -- but it sure would have helped if there were jokes or great characters to surround that idea. Instead, "Orgy" feels like a series of gags and sketches that are tied together with exposition about who's currently in or out on this whole orgy business. (Speaking of which, if these characters are this easily persuaded to have an orgy, it's hard to believe they haven't had 10 already.) This isn't a film in which suspense is created by having the audience wonder, "Will they go through with the orgy?" It's more like, "Geez, how soon 'til this orgy gets started?"
What keeps this movie afloat -- and then only barely -- is the general aura of likeability that the cast gives off. But even that's a bit deceiving. Lucy Punch, Lindsay Sloane, Leslie Bibb, Tyler Labine, Sudeikis and the rest are all technically "likeable," but it's really just code for, "Eh, I got nothin' against 'em." Basically, they're appealing, attractive people who smile a lot and aren't too mean to each other. And they're each given one character handicap to overcome, which remarkably coincides with the final orgy.
Amidst the broad sex jokes and antisocial behavior -- mostly from Labine as Eric's rude, crude chum -- "Orgy" takes time for a romantic subplot involving Eric and his dad's realtor (Leslie Bibb, several degrees more charming than she was in "Zookeeper"). Their flirty interplay is easily the movie's best feature, and it's telling how much more natural and breezy "Orgy" is in those moments as opposed to the times where it's leaning hard on the "Oh my god, they're all going to have an orgy!" shock value.
When we finally get to the ending and the much-anticipated orgy ... well, I don't want to give anything away. But I did find it funny that at my screening was Mark Duplass, one-half of the talented filmmaking brothers behind "The Puffy Chair" and "Cyrus." Duplass starred in a small movie by Lynn Shelton called "Humpday" that was about two distant best friends who find themselves agreeing to do a gay porn together to prove that they hadn't gotten old and boring. While watching "A Good Old Fashioned Orgy," I thought a lot about "Humpday" and how much more nuanced, funny and moving that story was -- not to mention legitimately surprising and shocking. It was everything that "Orgy" had wanted to be, and it did it in a much more thoughtful and quiet way. I wonder if anybody who made "Orgy" had seen it. They might pick up a thing or two.
Grade: C
