By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 1.5 cats
Director: Hannah Marks
Starring: Ben Rosenfield | Hayley Law | Kelli Berglund | Matt Shively | Nik Dodani | Sofia Bryanht
Country: united_states
Year: 2021
Running time: 90
IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11832624/reference
Michael says: “Off to a disappointing start, actor/director Hannah Marks’ second feature explores ethical non-monogamy, a philosophy about relationships that has been growing in popularity among young folks. Unfortunately, Marks said in an interview, it’s not a philosophy that she had followed, but thought it might be interesting to explore. Had I read that before watching the film I might have had some warning buzzers go off. The film ultimately reads like something created by someone from the outside looking in, and stumbles into a lot of the missteps that you might imagine if you’d never practiced this.
“Mark and Mary (re)meet cute while shopping in a convenient store. They originally met at a college party, which Mary needs quite a bit of prompting to recall. It turns out Mary is there shopping for a pregnancy test, and when Mark asks for her number, she glibly remarks that it depends on how the test turns out and invites him into the rest room with her while she takes the test. Jump forward some months and the pair are getting married. Jump forward another few weeks? months? and Mary’s friends are wondering if she feels older and settle-down now that she’s hitched and has to sleep with only one person for the rest of her life. This gets her thinking about the concept of ethical non-monogamy, which she brings up to Mark. As one might expect, he is freaked out, but quickly warms to the concept, if not the execution. Shortly thereafter, he has fully embraced the idea and the two embark on what seems more like a competition than a way of life. As the film progresses, things don’t proceed very smoothly. What a surprise.
“It would have been nice to see a film explore this concept in a more balanced and thoughtful way. Instead, it quickly becomes clear that Mark is still pretty immature, and is ultimately painted as “the bad guy” in the relationship. Mary isn’t allowed to have second thoughts, or change her mind, or even enforce the rules that they both agreed to. The actors are fine, but are not strong enough to elevate the film above the shoddy screenplay. Some of the group scenes with Mark and his friends, or Mary and her friends are fun, and certainly seem to capture the spirit of youth today, but ultimately there was too much wrong to make this film worthwhile 1.5 cats
“Screened at the Tribeca Festival 2021.“