The Threesome

by Mike McGranaghan

The Threesome immediately establishes that recording engineer Connor (Jonah Hauer-King) has long had unrequited love for friend/former coworker Olivia (Zoey Deutch). His best friend Greg (Jaboukie Young-White) mocks him for carrying a torch for so long. When Connor starts up a flirty conversation with a stranger named Jenny (Ruby Cruz) in a bar, Olivia inserts herself into the conversation. The trio leave to hang out. Before you know it, Olivia is suggesting a menage a trois, Jenny is surprisingly into it, and Connor thinks he’s just hit the jackpot.

Well, in a way he has, although not exactly as expected. Both women become pregnant from this adult playtime. Connor wants to do right by both of them, a task that becomes incrementally harder the more he tries.

Here is a classic example of a movie that attempts to do two separate things at the same time. One of them it does reasonably well, the other it does poorly. The poor half is a bawdy comedy about the titular sex act. That isn’t exactly new material; the Lara Flynn Boyle/Josh Charles/Stephen Baldwin picture Threesome did it all the way back in 1994. Worse, Ethan Ogilby’s screenplay has nothing worthwhile to say about the subject. It’s handled in a wink-wink, Aren’t-we-naughty? manner, rather than one designed to explore why these people might want to engage in this group activity. Smug, unfunny dialogue only makes that problem worse.

As Three’s Company improbable as the dual pregnancy plot is, it does work as a drama about the repercussions of bad choices. That’s directly due to the two lead actresses. Zoey Deutch effectively conveys how wild child Olivia feels semi-threatened by, but also weirdly attracted to, the idea of settling down into a parental role. Ruby Cruz (Bottoms) gives an even more emotional performance, playing Jenny as a girl who’s trying too hard to be something she’s not and paying a price for it. You can feel her “My God, what have I done?” shock in your bones. Cruz is a real powerhouse, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she becomes a major star in the near future.

Jonah Hauer-King (I Know What You Did Last Summer) is less effective. He spends the whole picture repeating a single note, i.e. Connor’s bewilderment over his predicament. It’s not entirely the actor’s fault, since the character is less interestingly written than the females. And making him a fundamental good-guy who wants to set things right ignores the self-serving ego Connor would obviously need to possess to think he deserves two beautiful women at once.

Going for cheap laughs one minute, then trying to evoke deep feelings the next, unsurprisingly leads to a disjointed tone. When you go into a supposed sex comedy about a menage a trois, you don’t expect to end up with a story that has people seriously debating abortion. The Threesome has several affecting moments when it focuses on these young adults coping with a night of pleasure that turns out to be life-altering. Those moments, however, are too often bookended by silliness.

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