The job’s the least of their concerns
Low-key rom-dramedy “Temps” claims to be about those temporary hourly workers, but the title’s pretty misleading. The romantic leads do meet at a temp job, but it quickly becomes less about their work life and more about their sex life.
“Temps” explores that millennial predilection to engage in no-label relationships and adventurously kinky sex and then find romance afterward. Jefferson (Grant Rosenmeyer) is the man-child, a ski bum who hates dating and jobs with benefits, while Stephanie (Lindsey Shaw) is the gogetter who likes her relationships clearly labeled.
After the shortest prickly banter of all time, the two hook up. They are, as Jefferson’s roommate puts it, “running the bases backward — sex first and then all the couple-y stuff.” There’s nothing really wrong with “Temps,” but we’ve heard from and its characters and story are before — the driven woman who wants to settle down, the immature man who doesn’t realize what he has until it’s gone.
Writer Tim BennettHuxtable and director Ryan Sage tread the familiar territory of twentysomething relationship movies, with revelations that are universal and entirely obvious, and that you wish weren’t quite so spelled out. That juvenile life they keep talking about is alluded to but never convincingly illustrated. Rosenmeyer and Shaw have an easy charm and chemistry together, but the been-there, done-that material doesn’t match their talents. “Temps.” Not rated. Running time: 1 hour, 35 minutes. Playing: Laemmle Monica Film Center, Santa Monica.