More than 40 years have passed since director Paul Mazursky took on the sexual revolution in his pivotal 1969 sort-of swinger comedy Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice. According to The Overnight, an insubstantial but entertaining take on similar territory, our hang-ups haven’t really changed much in four and a half decades.
We can talk about them more openly, though, as demonstrated by The Overnight’s raunchy opening scene. Alex (Adam Scott) and Emily (Taylor Schilling), a young married couple newly transplanted from Seattle to Los Angeles, aren’t exactly setting off fireworks in the bedroom, even before their young son, R.J. (R.J. Hermes), barges in on them. It’s tough to discuss their R-rated problems in a PG-13 paper, but suffice it to say that all isn’t well in the otherwise happy couple’s boudoir.
We know it’s a problem long before they do. As far as the pair is concerned, their only issues are ones related to their recent move: unpacking, getting R.J. settled in, making new friends. That last item is of particular concern to Alex, a stay-at-home dad who’s desperate for adult conversation. So when a chance encounter at a toddler birthday party leads them to strike up a friendship with another parent, the outgoing but aggressively hip Kurt (Jason Schwartzman), they’re all too willing to overlook their new pal’s eccentricities. Kurt invites the family to his home for dinner, where they’re greeted by Kurt’s impossibly gorgeous and gracious wife, Charlotte (Judith Godrèche). Once the kids are put to bed, the bong comes out, clothes come off, and the two couples are in for a bizarre night of personal revelations and paradigm shifts.
If it sounds highbrow, it really isn’t. But neither is it the sort of loud, manically paced hard-R comedy that’s become the norm lately. (Not that there’s anything wrong with those.) In fact, The Overnight, despite its ribald humor and frequent deployment of breast pumps and prosthetic male organs, almost feels quaint at times. That’s partly a product of the stagy setup—as the title indicates, most of it plays out over the course of one evening in Kurt and Charlotte’s home—but mostly it’s because writer-director Patrick Brice treats his characters with an endearing kindness.
That’s especially admirable when it comes to Kurt and Charlotte, who could easily slip into caricature at almost any moment. Kurt might come off as abrasive at first, and in early scenes he’s an easy target for stale jokes about hipsters. The same is true for Charlotte, a French sexpot who seems to have designs on Alex. Or possibly Emily. Or both of them? Figuring out who’s trying to seduce whom, and why, is part of the fun.
But as the night goes on, the oddball couple shed pretenses as often as their straight-laced counterparts shed inhibitions.
Most viewers will quickly figure out where The Overnight is headed, but it gets there in surprising ways, helped along by a terrific cast. Brice’s direction might stray too far into sitcom territory at times, but his script is smart and impeccably paced; as the night goes on, the quartet repeatedly splits into every possible pairing, giving the movie a chance to explore a range of dynamics and the cast a chance to play off one another in fun, unexpected ways.
Schwartzman gets to chew the most scenery, but Schilling, who proves herself to be a master of double takes and comic reactions, is the film’s real center. Her character is the slowest to cotton to the night’s debauchery, but Schilling never plays her as a prude; rather, she’s the axis around which everything spins, and the counterweight to some of the goofier shenanigans. It’s one of the many balancing acts that make The Overnight so much fun.
When the movie finally reaches its obvious conclusion, it does it with unexpected gentleness and even, dare I say it, class. The result is an unpredictable and often sweet comedy that’s long on insight, in spite of its small scale and modest aspirations. At only 79 minutes, the credits are rolling before the setup wears thin. Alex and Emily and Kurt and Charlotte probably won’t be showing up in film theory classes 40 years from now, but they sure are fun dates for an evening.
The Overnight is playing at Regal Downtown West Cinema 8.
April Snellings is a staff writer and project editor for Rue Morgue Magazine, which reaches more than 500,000 horror, thriller, and suspense fans across its media platforms. She recently joined the lineup of creators for Glass Eye Pix's acclaimed audio drama series Tales from Beyond the Pale, an Entertainment Weekly “Must List” pick that has been featured in The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.
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