Film Review: Conversations in Bed

Romance in film usually portrays the extremities of emotion, with characters flying into one another’s arms, gut-punching victims of circumstance, jealous lovers and a seemingly endless supply of Romeo and Juliet parodies and remakes.

These are, however, the extreme cases, and Dean Conway’s Conversations in Bed flips the stereotype on its head in an exploration of how two young couples navigate the sometimes-precarious discussions held in the privacy of a bedroom.

The film has a cast of three- it sees Shea, a young man from Fermanagh at two different points in his life: first, with his secondary school girlfriend, Síomha and then later, the beginning of a relationship with Maeve, in college.

Filmed on a constantly swaying handheld camera, there’s an intimacy to the cramped sensation that somehow isn’t unpleasant. Single-beds and small rooms bring everything in the shot physically close together, something that makes Shea’s talent for conversational blunders feel all the more like a bull in a China shop.

Played by Jonny Grogan, the seemingly pointless discussions he shares throughout the film are ultimately a way to examine differences between these two relationships- one that has evidently been going for some time, and another that’s just beginning.

The chemistry between Grogan and Skye McClenaghan, who plays Síomha, is crucial in conveying this. Entirely improvised, their dialogue has no sweeping statements or rain drenched confessions: instead, we get local gossip, Shea rambling about books, slagging and bickering. This is exactly where the charm of the film lies, in its unapologetically simple conversation. They communicate through a wide array of largely uninteresting topics that most of the time feel like a way to avoid an awkward silence but also give hints to their relationship outside of this small frame.

Though the chemistry is turned down a lot more in the subsequent scene, this isn’t in any way a criticism of Grace McMahon’s portrayal of Maeve. A new relationship, there’s noticeably more at stake, something she effortlessly conveys by her tolerance of Shea’s aforementioned ability to tap-dance on conversational landmines.

She tentatively pokes and prods in fruitless attempts to get Shea to discuss his past, trying and failing to find out information while trying to not to sound too interested. McMahon’s earnest portrayal is effective, in that it had me praying it was not to be one-sided.

In the audience, we cannot help but empathise with the characters’ attempts to play it cool. There’s plenty of hidden smiles, denial of hurt and plenty of attempts to seem unflappable.

I can’t speak for other generations, but gen Z (who this film undoubtedly belongs to) seems to be suffering from a crisis of emotional nonchalance, of too-cool-for-school, of a fear of being the most-interested person. Conway examines this through his film, highlighting it as a problem, yes, but ultimately casting a nonjudgmental eye over the awkwardness of vulnerability.

Conversations in Bed gives a unique interior perspective of how young people communicate in private, championing the insignificant interactions that arise from human desire to communicate.

• Check out Paul Nolan's interview with Dean Conway on Conversations in Bed here.