THREESOME

THREESOME (Directed by Andrew Fleming. Starring Lara Flynn Boyle, Stephen Baldwin, Josh Charles)

I went to see this with two women, one of whom was Drew Barrymore, but unfortunately, unlike the central characters, we did not all end up in bed. In fact, I was squirming in my cinema seat in a matter of minutes, not from sexual tension but from embarrassment at the Porky’s style humour with which the story opens. Two ill-matched college students, the boisterous lad Stuart (Stuart Baldwin) and aesthetically inclined Eddy (Josh Charles), forced to room together build a friendship based on drinks and pranks. When, due to a gender-confusing name, Alex (Lara Flynn Boyle) is moved in with them, a strange menage-à-trois slowly develops, as Stuart tries to bed Alex who only has eyes for Eddy who, it emerges, is actually rather keen on Stuart.

Despite unfortunate allusions to the vastly superior Jules Et Jim, what develops is a surprisingly well-considered sexual and emotional adventure, with a sensitive approach to homosexuality. Stuart Baldwin, less handsome younger brother of Alec and William, steals the show and energises the sometimes wobbly plot with a sympathetic portrait of an increasingly open-minded yob, like Butt Head getting a new head, (although he noticeably stops short of giving it). The brash humour actually lends the film an interesting quality, as if its mission was to explain sexual deviancy to mainstream movie-goers. It swings between the cringeworthy and the genuinely amusing, but seems to have its heart (if not its dick) in the right place.