It ain’t the meet, it’s the notion
IT STARTED as a playdate. Now it’s turned into something out of Playboy — with the kids in bed, the bongs out of the closet and the grinning hosts pushing nude movies and skinny-dipping at two very confused adult guests.
“This is California,” Adam Scott whispers to nervous wife Taylor Schilling. “Maybe this is what dinner parties are like.”
I knew there was a reason I moved to Jersey.
“The Overnight,” a slight but sometimes surprisingly sweet comedy about couples and coupling, stars Scott and Schilling as uptight L.A. newcomers. Jason Schwartzman and Judith Godreche are the fabulously wealthy pair who want to take them under their wings. And then, perhaps, their covers.
It’s a simple situation and a good cast. As the comedy’s straight man, Scott does squeamish awkwardness well. As his millionaire hipster host, Schwartzman brims with absurd pretension. Schilling embodies the innocent American wife, Godreche the worldlier European one.
All the actors are game. Both men are naked, perhaps more than you’d wish, with prosthetics drastically enhancing, or minimizing, their charms. But if Schilling can’t immediately see what’s coming once the talk turns to sex, any alert audience member can — and even at 80 minutes, the movie takes a while getting there.
Still, there’s plenty of raunchy romance here and some good, deliberately cringeworthy lines. And if it all takes too long to get started, and forever to finish, it still leaves you satisfied.