Movies - Threesome

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	Movies - Threesome

Threesome is a 1994 film, written and directed by Andrew Fleming. The film is an autobiographical comedy mixed in with some social commentary, and is based on the college memories of Fleming. It was awarded an R rating by The Motion Picture Association of America.

Plot

The film starts out with two college students; the shy and intellectual Eddy (Josh Charles) and the All-American jock Stuart (Stephen Baldwin) ending up with a female roommate. The university thought that Alex (Lara Flynn Boyle) was a man (based on her name) and thus the three students are forced to live with each other until the university can move Alex to a female dorm.

Eddy falls in love with Stuart; Alex falls in love and tries unsuccessfully to seduce Eddy; and Stuart is in love with Alex. The trio become good friends and scare off anyone who tries to seduce the other. Eventually, Alex, Stuart and Eddy agree to have an actual threesome and that seems to destroy the friendship, and raises the possibility that Alex might have become pregnant (suggesting that condoms were not used).

After the threesome, Stuart freaks out when Eddy tries to seduce him. Alex accepts that fact that Eddy is gay and moves out. Eddy (who acts as the film's narrator) eventually finds a boyfriend. While they all agree to go their own separate ways, they do not seem to regret the friendship they had while in college.

Criticism

Upon release, the film received mixed reviews. Critics such as Roger Ebert felt that film was unfunny, and that "Like many kids their age, these three are more bold in talk than action, and the movie sounds right; it sounds like undergraduate human dialogue, intended to shock, to liberate, to amuse.". Yet, even Peter Travers' review for Rolling Stone magazine wrote, "We're supposed to get all teary when kinkiness threatens to break up a friendship that was hard to swallow in the first place. There's lots of glossy cinematography, courtesy of Alexander Gruszynski, as the three lovers wander the campus separately, looking contemplative. Now there's a laugh. Eddy, a film student, actually makes reference to François Truffaut's ménage à trois classic, Jules and Jim
. Eddy, you wish." . Many feminists and gay filmgoers also felt that the character's sexuality was underdeveloped and done primarily for the narrow enjoyment of heterosexual male college students. The characters engaged in a threesome but do not seem concerned about the possible consequences of sex, i.e. disease or pregnancy, until after the fact. The film also failed to show the important moments after the sex scene, where the emotional arc of each character could have developed further.

Alex was a heterosexual college man's dream; a woman that was eager to have sex with two guys at the same time without any concern for commitment. Throughout the entire film Eddy was effeminate and quickly rejected the advances of the only other gay college student in the film. On the surface, Stuart was heterosexual but in the threesome sex scene seemed open to the possibility of homosexuality, even as he later rejects Eddy attempts to seduce him. In print interviews, the actor Baldwin mentioned that some scenes that would suggested that his character was gay or bisexual such as a kissing scene during the big "three-way", with Eddy and a one-on-one sex scene that occurred after Alex moves out were deleted. These deleted scenes were not included in the DVD release of the film.

Post-Threesome

More recently, the film has developed a cult sensibility and is looked upon with greater affection than upon its initial release. The film has also been viewed in a new light as one of a group of films marketed at Generation X, that were released in the early 1990s and which helped to pave the way for more openness in American cinema about human sexuality and more positive portrayals of gay characters. In this historical sense, the gender and sexual politics in Threesome are compared to other major films such as Pump Up The Volume, When The Party's Over, My Own Private Idaho
(1991), Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992), Philadelphia, Wayne's World
, What's Eating Gilbert Grape
(1993), Reality Bites
(1994), Naked In New York (1993), and Hackers (1995).

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Movies - Threesome

Plot

Criticism

Post-Threesome

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