Skip to main content
Let me try a phrase on you: "The best sex comedy at Sundance." That's what Rolling Stone said of The Overnight, and that single plaudit gives you a lot of reasons not to see this movie. Here are even more, plus maybe a few reasons you actually should see it.
In case you're not trolling the blogs about Sundance sex comedies, The Overnight follows a Seattle couple with a young kid that moves to L.A., where the child has trouble making friends. When the parents are invited to dinner by a hot couple from the neighborhood that also has a young kid, they jump at the chance. And it's obvious to us from the beginning, if not to them, that something else is up. The following innuendo and buildup accounts for the bulk of the movie.
I'm not big into awkward comedy, but The Overnight is so deft and surprising that I almost enjoyed the feeling. The acting is charming and perfect. Taylor Schilling (Orange Is the New Black) and Adam Scott (Parks and Recreation) are just on the edge of oblivious, but understandably so. And their chemistry as a couple is terrific. I immediately wanted to invite them to dinner with me and my wife. Not to seduce them, just to be friends with them. Just for the conversation. They're that charming.
And then we'd fuck them!
Or not. It's cool either way.
The whole movie dances that line, though. At any moment it feels like it could tumble into cliché, or just cheesy sex jokes, or just awkwardness for its own sake. But it doesn't. Even Jason Schwartzman, who plays a sexy version of Michael Scott from The Office, is more endearing than annoying.
There is one troubling side note that I really need to mention. The Overnight counts itself among a myriad of recent movies that include a scene with hyper-realistic vomiting. I don't know when all of Hollywood's production companies got together and swore a blood oath that they would never cut away and just play a vomiting sound, but they did. I've seen three movies in eight days, and all three featured a graphic upchuck scene.
This is where slightly uncomfortable crosses over the metaphorical bunching-sock line. Please, please, please, movies. Let's cut the cinéma vérité bullshit and just use our own chunky imaginations.
The Greatest Fake Penises in Film History
The Overnight features two impressively different prosthetic packages. They look good, I guess, but fake. Still, that got me thinking about my top five fake junks in movie history.
5. A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas
You know the classic tongue-on-a-flagpole scene in A Christmas Story? Well, Harold & Kumar did it with a prosthetic penis. And they showed it. It's gross but did display how impressively flexible a prosthetic can be.
4. Watchmen
Not a prosthetic, but a CGI rendering of Dr. Manhattan in all his blue, glowy glory. Full points to the animator who had to spend a month drawing every single frame of that full frontal.
3. There's Something About Mary
The beans are above the frank. It's a horrifying prosthetic, with the zipper mixed in throughout. Another day I'm glad I'm not a sculptor.
2. The Wolf of Wall Street
Jonah Hill has masturbates a prosthetic peen in front of 40-plus party guests in a scene that's almost hard to remember because everything in that movie is so over the top.
1. Boogie Nights (with a bullet)
This is the first one most people think of, probably because of its spectacular size. According to one prop designer, the original was even bigger, but they decided 12 inches was simply too big.
SEE IT: The Overnight is rated R. It opens Friday at Cinema 21.
WWeek 2015