Reviewed by

Christopher Armstead

Andy (Josh Cooke) and Jerry (Greg Grunberg) are a couple of mad ad-men, because we know in movies the number one occupation is that of Advertising Executive. Followed by retired CIA / Special Ops badass. I think there’s a story there somewhere for you aspiring script writers out there. Anyway, in between creating scintillating advertising campaigns for their clients, these two young men are out and about trying to find different variations of love. Jerry is a player, Andy wants to cuddle, the name of the movie ‘Group Sex’, it’s a Romantic Comedy and don’t let the title fool you.

Andy’s lady love fiancé left him after five years of bliss soon after she shacked up with ‘a guy at the gym’ and he’s been a mental wreck ever since, living with his best friend Jerry. I couldn’t quite decipher why he was living with this dude considering he has a decent job and probably could get his own place but I guess it has something to do with Andy’s issues of abandonment. Besides, Jerry lives in the ultimate Man Cave. His whole loft is a man cave. Big TV’s everywhere, full size basketball hoop, videogames, arcade games, pool tables, golf clubs sitting out in the open and not to mention that he has sexual relations with as many women as he chooses at any time he so chooses. Jerry has it made. However we all know that Jerry is truly empty on the inside and we are fairly certain he will come to realize this tragic fact before the final credits roll.

Then Andy sees ‘her’. Her would be the lovely Vanessa (Odette Yustman), a musician who Andy spies while she was finishing up a set at the local pub. So smitten by this talented lovely lady Andy follows her, which takes the man to some kind of basement church meeting. Is Vanessa an alcoholic? We don’t know yet. But the Fonz spies Andy looking in on the meeting and assuming he needs the help this meeting provides, he encourages him to join. It’s a Sex Addiction help group is what it is. One golfer professes his illness and now we have Romantic Comedies based on the poor man’s 'sickness'.

To Andy’s benefit he did attempt to tell this crew of wacky sex addicts that he wasn’t one of them, but did they listen? Of course they didn’t, assuming he was simply in denial. So to fit in Andy assumes the sexual identity of his best friend Jerry and now has made some fast sex addicted buddies such as Herman the whore addict (Tom Arnold) and Donny the compulsive masturbator (Robe Benedict).

Vanessa’s sexual addiction is a little more vague having something to do with the girl and her poor taste in men and being easily manipulated when she drinks too much. Not that I’m saying anything but that’s most women, right? It’s a RomCom and this movie does follow RomCom convention but in a malleable type of way. So girl doesn’t like the boy much, girl falls for the boy… kind of… boy loses girl… but he never really had the girl to be honest and the boy gets the girl back… TBD. And don’t forget while all this is going on, our Ad Men need to sell this realities version of Tim Horton on their futuristic Robot Donut campaign. Worst Ad Campaign Ever. Wackiness, mayhem and chaotic zaniness shall most definitely ensue.

Directed by Lawrence Trilling and written by Trilling with some help from the film’s co-star Greg Grunberg, ‘Group Sex’ is a funny movie. Damned funny… consistently funny. That’s not to say that ‘Group Sex’ is a good movie, in the pure sense of a good movie defined, but if the goal was to make me laugh then gosh darnit, ‘Group Sex’ made me laugh.

Now if I were to dust off my serious critical hat, which I only wear on special occasions, I could point out that ‘Group Sex’ isn’t the most subtle movie in the way that it goes about its business, giving us a brand of comedy that is completely in your face and more along the lines of a coconut falling off a tree and bopping you in the head. But a coconut hitting somebody on the head is almost always funny. We could also point out that the characters that we are spending quality time with are about as broadly drawn as any set of characters in any movie ever made, which admittedly is a broadly stated blanket statement, but I think it fits. But considering we have a wacky RomCom that is about a subtle as a punch in the face, placing subtle, nuanced characters in such a movie would be plum silly. We could also mention that the story in this movie is less a story and more a collection of loosely tied together scenes as we watch Andy jump from silly event to silly event, but we’re not going to mention that.

But the actors inhabiting these broadly drawn characters were clearly in on the joke and it all worked out in the end. Josh Cooke was suitably pathetic, Greg Grunberg was suitably boorish, actress Kym Whitley couldn’t be unfunny if she tried, the Fonz is a legend and Odette Yustman is thin a pretty. That’s outstanding.

If you are looking for a comedy along the lines of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, then ‘Group Sex’ probably isn’t going to fill that bill. If you’re taste are a little less refined… way less refined… say like mine are, chances are there is something in this movie that’s going to make you laugh which may just convince you that this was movie time well spent.