“The End of Sex,” now playing in theatres, stars Emily Hampshire and Jonas Chernick as a couple looking to spice up their stale sex life while the kids are off at sleepaway camp.
Emma (Hampshire) and Josh (Chernick) shared their first kiss as teens, and have been partners in life ever since. Two daughters later, they’re in a rut, but it’s a happy enough rut. They’re still in love, creating a happy, loving life for themselves and the kids. But one thing is missing. Their sex life.
“Our sex has become mechanical,” says Emma.
“So,” says Josh, “let’s surprise each other.”
With the kids away for the first time ever, they have the house to themselves. Without the prying eyes of the little ones watching their every move, they have a chance to reevaluate their “mutual apathy and shared disinterest in sex.”
As the pressure to have a “normal” sex life mounts—there’s a ménage à trois tinged with obsession, extasy popping and an embarrassing visit to a sex club—their sexual odyssey doesn’t quite go as they hoped.
Despite the provocative title, “The End of Sex” isn’t really about sex. Ultimately, it’s about trust and togetherness. And an awkward threesome. An exploration of long-term marriages, it places its characters in mild relationship jeopardy as a way to dig into what it really means to spend one’s life with another person.
We see examples of that long-term commitment in the shorthand between Emma and Josh. It’s in the easy way they communicate (most of the time) and the understanding of things that are left unsaid between them. We see the hurt that comes from complacency—”The past few days I’ve been thinking a lot about sex,” says Emma. “You’ve been thinking about sex with people who aren’t me,” replies Josh.—and the often ridiculous lengths couples will go through to spice things up.
It’s all a bit predictable and a bit heightened, but is buoyed by funny cameos from Melanie Scrofano, as the Emma’s obsessed friend, and Colin Mochrie in an unlikely situation.
As a date night movie “The End of Sex” offers up an earnest portrait of the intimacy and connection necessary for a couple to weather the storms of an on-going relationship. It’s no “A Married Couple”—Alan King’s legendary 1969 documentary about a marriage in uproar—but it does deliver some insights into what makes relationships tick.
In the early moments of “James Vs His Future Self, a metaphysical rom com starring Jonas Chernick, a character named Dr. Rowley (Frances Conroy) encapsulates the film’s premise. “A tiny change today brings a dramatic difference tomorrow.”
The story of changing your worst nature before it’s too late begins with physicist James Dolensky (Chernick) obsessed with his work. The only thing he gives a second thought to, other than his work, is his wannabe love-interest, scientist Courtney (Cleopatra Coleman). “Science is what I’m meant to do,” James says. Trouble is, Courtney is considering taking a job at CERN in Switzerland and if James doesn’t do or say something soon he may never see her again.
That’s when things get trippy. Enter a taller, larger version of James—“Time ravel does things to you.”—played by Daniel Stern. “I am also James Dolensky because I am you,” he says, “from the future. Not me, you. WE are from the future.” Current James is all in working toward presenting his ideas at a conference while Future James sees the whole picture from the perspective of a life lived. “You do not want this life,” he says. “You don’t have a clue. There is a reason I came back now. I’m still sort of a good guy when I’m you. You take that position and that is doomsday. Your ego, your self-righteousness is going to smother all the other parts of your life. Life. Love. Joy. Family. I came back to stop you from making that mistake, one way or the other.”
Despite the time travel angle the film’s message is pretty clear. Wherever—or maybe in this case, whenever—you are, be all there. Chernick and co-writer Jeremy LaLonde (who also directed) mix it up with scientific jargon about the uncertainty principle and Schrödinger’s cat, but at its heart “James Vs His Future Self” is a story about chemistry, not in a lab but between people.
“James Vs His Future Self” doesn’t get messed up in the details of time travel. Wisely choosing to concentrate on the characters and the love story it allows the fully formed and interesting characters to do what they do without getting bogged down by the scientific wonkery. Chernick brings brains and nerdy vulnerability to Current James. Coleman transcends being simply a love interest to create the character who really drives the action but it is Stern who makes the biggest impact.
In his biggest role in years Stern brings it. Future James is a piece of work, a man who knows how high the stakes are and who will do almost anything to put Current James on the right track. It’s a wonderfully unhinged performance that gives the movie some real spark.
“James Vs His Future Self” takes a rom com premise and infuses it with just enough invention and charm to create a timeless romance.
Can a couple be greater than the sum of its parts? That’s the question raised by “A Swingers Weekend,” a new dramedy starring Erin Karpluk, Jonas Chernick and Mia Kirshner.
Set at a spiffy lake house owned by Dan (Randal Edwards) and Lisa (Karpluk), the action begins when the couple invites their married friends Teejay (Michael Xavier) and Skai (Erin Agostino) over for a consensual mixing and match of sexual partners. A swingers weekend. Things get complicated with the arrival of others, Geoffrey (Jonas Chernick) and Fiona (Kirshner), a bickering couple who didn’t realize they were walking into a sexual swap party.
To say anything more about “A Swingers Weekend’s” plot would give away the character’s personal journeys. Suffice to say, the story is less about the actual sex and more about the motivations of everyone involved. What begins almost as a sex farce becomes a deeper exploration of the character’s lives, both individually and as couples. It’s about relationship dynamics and how, when you scratch the perfect veneer, you may find rot underneath.
“A Swingers Weekend” may not be the most searing look at interpersonal relationships to hot big screens but an engaging cast creates and sustains enough sexual tension to keep things interesting.
