Last night I finally had a chance to view “The Overnight”, an independent film starring Adam Scott (Ben from Parks & Rec), Taylor Schilling, Jason Schwartzman, and Judith Godreche. Dan Savage recommended the film and I figured that means it is worth checking out, especially since it is now on Netflix. Despite not having any ROFL moments I did really enjoy the film and found it entertaining.
There will now be spoilers, so if that bothers you then you should just go watch the film instead of dicking around on the internet. It is only 75 minutes.
So, what I really enjoyed about this film was the realism. They touched on several subjects that are not seen that often in popular cinema. It also treated the situations as realistic instead of trying to titillate the audience.
Body Image Issues – One of the male characters is uncomfortable with his penis size and isn’t comfortable naked. This is likely very common, particularly in the US where seeing a male friend naked is kind of rare. There is a ingrained homophobia in this country and seeing another male naked or, even worse, finding them attractive can bring about a lot of assumptions about your sexuality.
Nudity at Parties – Television and movies tend to only show female nudity, particularly at parties. There are scantily-clad or topless women everywhere in media, but that isn’t how most parties in real life turn out. In my experience, it is usually a guy who is willing to go streaking or skinny-dipping. That’s how it is in this film, you see two dicks but no real female nudity (aside from a very short shot of a woman standing without underwear on).
Fluid Sexuality – One of the driving forces of the film is one of the male characters finds another male attractive. After some discussion among the group you find that he is happily married and found his wife very sexy, but as time has gone on he has had a growing interest in other men. We here a lot about bisexual women or sexually fluid women, but there it is still fairly taboo for a man to identify as bisexual or to have sexual fun with a man. In reality, men can be sexually fluid depending on time, place, and the people involved.
Companion Marriage – One of the married couples in the film seems to have a “companion marriage”. They love each other, are best friends, are good parents, and work well as roommates, but they are not sexually or romantically attracted to each other anymore. So, instead of breaking up everything and causing a bunch of chaos they stay married as companions and each person is free to pursue their interests outside of the marriage. I’d love to see more companion marriages talked about in the world openly. It is unhealthy to expect one person to be your “one and only” forever and ever, we need other people to fulfill holes in our life, and sometimes those holes are sexual. The marriage in this movie is a great success, though some would see it as a failure because they aren’t as romantically or sexually interested in each other.
Anyway, I highly recommend the film if you have an hour or so and enjoy watching something a little more socially progressive.
Wandering Oak 