YOUNG PEOPLE FUCKING

Directed by Martin Gero

Review by Roberto Azula

The problem with date movies is they generally suck if you don’t have a date with you. (Sideways is the only date movie that I can remember actually enjoying without the context of a date). You see, if you’re with your date, and you want to get that person in the mood, you’ll laugh right along with the goofy script and sigh at the romantic interludes. But if you happen to be a movie reviewer actually listening to the dialog and trying to piece together the film’s internal logic, the façade quickly falls apart. The agenda of Martin Gero’s Young People Fucking is fairly clear; to get couples (specifically, straight white couples) horny by creating situations they can “relate to”. However, he fails to realize people don’t talk like they are trying to remember their lines in an off-Broadway play.

Writers Aaron Abrams and Martin Gero create such a flagrant distortion of the male psyche that I wonder if the film wasn’t actually ghostwritten by some Harlequin novelist. Let’s get this straight: Men want to screw, and if they are trying to get themselves laid, they are not going to give these namby pamby “sensitive guy” speeches not because they are not sensitive guys (and believe it or not, most guys are), but because sensitive guy speeches simply do not get you laid. But hey, this is the movies, so anything is possible.

Like most vignette collections, Young People Fucking is extremely uneven. The strongest part of the film is the most farcical, and ironically, the most realistic. Obnoxious blowhard Gord (Ennis Esner) and his girlfriend Inez (Natalie Lisinka) convince Gord’s weirdly quiet roommate Dave (Peter Oldring) to have sex with Inez while Gord watches. The sweaty gyrations and wildly inappropriate “directing” on Gord’s part were the film’s funniest and most honest moments. The rest of vignettes, unfortunately, are a series of tedious, stagy scenes about men reluctant to have sex with beautiful women. Fortunately, a strap-on dildo does eventually save one marriage. Good luck on your date.