“This is California. Maybe this what dinner parties are like here.” So says one participant in the absolutely not-average dinner party that is the setting of The Overnight. This film is a rare treat for movie-going audiences: a comedy about sex, for adults. There’s no gross-out semen jokes, there’s no teenage silliness or sexual repression. It’s about trying to keep marriages strong, while also trying to raise kids and have a rich sex life and actually have fun. And The Overnight recognizes that its all hard work.
The two couples in the film are Emily and Alex (Taylor Schilling and Adam Scott) and Charlotte and Kurt (Judith Godrèche and Jason Schwartzman). Emily and Alex are recent transplants to LA, having moved from the Northwest so Emily could take a job. The movie opens with the two of them trying (and failing) to have a quickie in the bed before their son wakes up and barges into their bedroom.
Alex stays home with their 5 year old son; he has no friends, and being a stay-at-home dad, little opportunity to meet anyone. He’s given up his old life and he’s not resentful, just bored.
Until, that is, their son meets another kid at the playground, and Alex and Emily meet the new kid’s dad, Kurt. The kids hit off, and Kurt invites the two over for a pizza party. Kurt and Charlotte, it turns out, are very rich. They live in a gated mansion and when Emily and Alex arrive, they are overwhelmed. Alex is humiliated by their contribution to the night, a bottle of Two Buck Chuck, so he rips off the label and tells Kurt its from his friend’s organic winery up-state.
Despite their differences, and Kurt’s obnoxious air of condescension, the two couples hit it off. After dinner, they put the kids to bed upstairs, and decide to keep the night going. Another bottle of wine becomes two, which becomes getting high and letting the evening lead where it may.
Emily does take some convincing. She’s on board for some fun, but she’s just not quite sure what to make of Kurt and Charlotte, who seem a little too free in their interaction with relative strangers. Charlotte is an actress, they’re told, and at one point Kurt puts in one of Charlotte’s films. It turns out to be an instructional video for a breast pump. Without warning, that’s a pretty big jump forward in a budding friendship.
But Alex jumps on board for the night, and eventually Emily does too. What happens in the the rest of movie is too varied and bizarre to report. But it would also spoil the fun anyway. Much of the pleasure that comes in The Overnight is watching these characters completely reveal themselves emotionally-their insecurities, their flawed marriages, their weird painting fetishes-and physically-props to Schwartzman and Scott for being on board with this one. I won’t spoil those reveals here.
Instead, I will say that The Overnight is blissfully free of judgment and sexual embarrassment (even if all its characters are not), and that my wife and I relished the experience of watching it together.
Patrick Brice gets his actors to go head-first into the physicality of these roles, not just the nudity (though that’s no small part of it), but the fighting and crying and butt wagging. For the audience it can be squirm-inducing, but everyone seems to be having so much weird fun, and that feeling is truly infectious.
And, underneath, Brice gets at some powerful bits of wisdom and insight into adult relationships. The director is smart enough to know that his film is an uncomfortable ride, and he keeps the ribaldry short. At 80 minutes, audiences get the full awkwardness without devolving into ludicrous obsession. And the finale that Brice provides these characters is remarkable, and totally unexpected for the mainstream movies.
These aren’t particularly rich characters, nor is The Overnight built on some deep philosophical truth that Patrick Brice unlocks. But what the picture lacks in complexity it makes up for in honesty. Being married is hard work. Sex is something needs to be managed. And trying to keep a relationship together can be a really strange, fun, intoxicating challenge.
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