Love is strange, and it doesn’t always make sense – but yet, it’s something that we all often crave, since it not only instils in us a sense of genuine satisfaction both physically and emotionally, but the validation that comes from simply being recognised as someone worth affection is a vital part of the human experience. However, many of us tend to take it for granted, and can even become greedy in a lot of instances, which leads to many peculiar challenges surrounding the role love plays in our daily lives. This is something that Chat Hartigan selects as the foundation for The Threesome, a film he developed from a screenplay written by Ethan Ogilby, and which follows Conner, a mild-mannered young man who has come to realise that he needs to start paying attention to his life’s choices, focusing on making the correct choices as he steps into the next stage of his life, one where he can no longer rely on the naivete of youth to get him through each day. A poor decision involving his longtime crush and a chance encounter with another beguiling young woman eventually leads to Conner finally feeling like everything is on track, especially when the former finally agrees to give him a chance. However, they all soon learn that their brief tryst had enormous consequences when both women become pregnant, presumably both being fathered by Conner, who almost immediately falls into a tailspin, trying desperately to arrange his thoughts and address this enormous predicament. A wonderfully funny and deeply heartfelt comedy handcrafted by a director who has constantly shown himself to be one of the most keen and intriguing social critics working today, The Threesome is a fascinating work, a detailed and compelling comedy that is not afraid to have the difficult conversations where required, while still being distinct in how it follows a topic that could have been relentlessly bawdy and tacky, but instead becomes the foundation for one of the year’s most delightfully offbeat and oddly cathartic works of social commentary.

There is nothing quite like the moment someone turns thirty and thinks that they are running out of time, and I say this from experience. The realisation that you are now officially in a decade of life where society has generally come to agree that everyone should have their life together, or at least have a solid plan for their future. This is one of the many themes that inform The Threesome, which is a far more elegant affair than we would expect based on the title. The themes that Ogilby uses as the basis for this story are likely to resonate with a number of viewers, regardless of whether or not we are able to relate to the specific circumstances presented throughout the film. At some point, we were all young (and for some of us, we’d like to think we haven’t quite crossed that threshold into being past our prime just yet, a never-ending battle between pursuing your dreams or settling in to domestic complacency, which has always been ferociously debated. Through this, the film examines several additional themes, using the idea of three people who make a hasty decision (albeit one that seemed to make sense in the moment, and we can’t deny the impact of the scenes leading up to the titular event, which are beautifully romantic and filled with genuine passion), and how such a choice can impact all of them, the anxiety and fear from the fallout far outweighing the pleasure and allure of the act itself. The Threesome, despite its title, is not a film about sex, but rather the challenges that come with existing in a world we don’t truly understand, and how society treats every decision we make, regardless of whether they’re hasty or planned, as being definitive of our character, and where simply atoning or trying to repair a situation is not always enough to avoid certain obstacles. For a film that seems to be relatively lightweight on the surface, The Threesome is genuinely quite challenging in ways that may surprise a lot of viewers, who will undoubtedly be swept off their feet by a story that seems to be quite simple at first, but grows in depth and scope as the film progresses and becomes more quietly engaging the further we step into this story.

The Threesome is not a film that is particularly innovative or unique, and it tells a story that will be familiar to many viewers, since it tackles themes that have formed the foundation of countless romantic films in the past. As a result, all the film has to offer – in addition to the witty script by Ogilby that stands as one of the very best of the year – are the uniformly fantastic performances. As you’d expect, three core performances drive this film, and something that we find it does very well is its active decision to not present them as overly likable from the start, but rather to position them as people who are deeply flawed from the first introduction, rather than allowing these shortcomings to reveal themselves over the course of the film, which is an inverse of traditional character development and one that works out exceptionally well. Jonah Hauer-King presents himself as a more shy, reserved young man whose hangdog stoicism is genuinely frustrating – as one of the characters says midway through the film, he’s a decently successful young man who is both physically attractive and has a pleasant personality, so his tendency towards self-deprecation is inauthentic and frankly annoying. Zoey Deutch plays the inverse, a happy-go-lucky young woman who refuses to take life seriously, which ultimately leads her to neglect learning certain lessons, which she quickly has to educate herself on as a result of desperation. These two are the centrepiece of the film, and their dynamic is most important, which ultimately informs a lot of the film and what it sets out to do, which is surprisingly quite compelling. The third participant in their menage a trois is portrayed by Lily Cruz, who has the smallest of the three central parts, but is nonetheless still very important – she exits and re-enters the film for long stretches of time, and we never see the world through her persective, but she is instead a grounding presence, someone who exists to underline just how much Conner and Olivia truly love one another, representing everything that they both want to avoid in a partner or themselves. The three leads have superb chemistry and bring such incredible nuance and affection to these roles, which are far simpler in theory than they were in practice.

When a film has three exceptional performances and a terrific screenplay, everything else essentially just falls into place naturally. This is certainly the case for The Threesome, which does not need to over-extend itself to be too ambitious, and instead is more than capable of capturing the honesty and sincerity lurking beneath the surface by presenting them through ordinary, conventional means. The story and the lingering themes speak for themselves, and we find Hartigan (who is not inexperienced – both Morris from America and Little Fish are incredible works that show his remarkable skill and ability to tell a simple but evocative story filled with heart and humour) focusing less on the spectacle and more on the authenticity of the piece. Visually, it is about as conventional as we would expect – the romantic scenes are quite well-constructed, and you can sense the fiery passion through the screen, which allows for the film to focus more on the execution of its ideas. Had another filmmaker been handed this material, we’d have likely seen a starkly different approach, one that veers wildly towards one of the two tonal extremes: either it would be a mercilessly bawdy, crude sex comedy, or a melodramatic, downbeat drama about the plight of three people who find their entire lives derailed by a poor decision. Hartigan instead chooses to walk the narrow tonal tightrope that brings elements of both, splitting it squarely down the centre and allowing each moment to speak for itself. Some moments are outrageously funny, with some genuinely brilliant jokes and a sense of intentional chaos that drives the core narrative, and some that are intentionally more meditative, quietly examining how each of these three characters engages with the harsh realities that they are forced to face. It avoids being too flippant, but also never comes across as too overly intense or emotionally manipulative, striking the perfect balance between the two and ultimately succeeding to be genuinely moving in the process. 

At a glance, you would be forgiven for thinking that The Threesome is a film rife with crude content and a story that pushes the boundaries of decency, since even the title implies that this is a film built on sexuality more than anything else. However, the titular event is barely even shown on screen (in fact, it takes place in the transition between scenes), and instead we find that it is merely used to draw us in – after all, a “threesome” does not necessarily only have to refer to the sexual act, but also the combination of three people who are facing the same challenges, working together in tandem to resolve a problem that none of them could fix on their own. This is not a film about regretting the past – these characters feel remorse, but at no point is their situation viewed as anything that can’t be overcome and turned into a more positive experience with a shift in their perspective. It’s not a particularly complex work, but rather one that thrives on its simplicity. Taking a very strong screenplay that would have been massively successful in the hands of many filmmakers, but which becomes a true gem when handled by Hartigan, who has shown himself to be quite skilled in navigating more challenging topics, which he does with precision and sincerity, the kind that we don’t often find populating more mainstream versions of these stories. Anchored by a terrific cast, who manage to deliver stellar performances despite playing deeply flawed characters (with these shortcomings being a feature, not a mistake), representing many young people who find themselves struggling to make sense of the world. It’s a beautifully compelling work, the rare kind of romantic comedy that doesn’t view physical love as the goal, but rather a part of the journey, since it’s often the emotional connection and the feeling of genuine comfort and optimism that truly defines what it means to be in love. Wonderfully quirky but also heartfelt in ways that some may find slightly surprising, The Threesome is a terrific work, and well worth the time of anyone who wants to see a truly charming and meaningful romantic comedy that tackles an intimidating subject with tact, nuance and a lot of soul.