Richard Crouse

Chances are good you’ve already heard about this movie. Under its real title, not the cutesy one I have to use here, it has stirred up a firestorm of controversy in Ottawa. Outraged by the title lawmakers in our capitol came up with the six-hundred page Bill C-10 a new bill that would give the federal Heritage Department the power to deny funding for films and TV shows it considers offensive. The resulting hullabaloo has provided the film with the kind of publicity that most Canadian films would kill for. Now the important question remains: Is the film as provocative and outrageous as its title?

The answer is, thankfully no, otherwise you’d be renting the movie from the adult’s only section of your local video store and not seeing it on the big screen at your local multiplex. Young People Doing the Nasty is a movie about sex and relationships which takes place primarily in beds and in a reclining position but Deep Throat this ain’t. Instead it is a sweet and funny look at how five sets of couples—best friends, roommates do it, exes, a married couple and young co-workers—interact with one another when they are at their most vulnerable—exposed literally and figuratively.

Broken into six segments from Foreplay to Afterglow and everything in between, the movie mostly avoids the clichés of the sex comedy genre [presenting instead, a smartly written look at the dynamics between unclothed men and women. So if our intrepid lawmakers in Ottawa set out to vote on Bill C-10 with an idea of protecting the chaste interests of all Canadians they may want to actually see the movie first. If they do they’ll realize it’s less about young people doing what comes naturally and more about young people talking about it in an entertaining and interesting way.

Instead of vilifying YPF for its provocative title Ottawa should be encouraging young Canadian filmmakers to make movies as attention grabbing as this one.