Alison Brie stars as Lainey and Jason Sudeikis as Jake in Leslye Hedlund’s raunch-com meets rom-com film.Linda Kallerus
It is 2015 in New York, where snappy and casually explicit repartee now passes for sophistication and self-assuredness.
In Sleeping With Other People, Jason Sudeikis and Alison Brie winningly star as pals who candidly talk sex but, while clearly mutually attracted, don't actually get naked with each other (except that time back in university when they traded virginities).
In one scene, Sudeikis's smooth-quipping and non-committal single-guy Jake – beware of men with pinball machines in their lofts – graphically teaches Brie's issue-laden Lainey how to pleasure herself.
Raunch-com meets rom-com, Harry meets Sally in a restroom stall, and Woody Allen faints from the frankness.
The main characters are a bit underdeveloped, but we're with them, or maybe a little ahead of them, for the full 100 minutes.
Writer-director Leslye Headland has made a film that is saucy and sweet, for the boys and for the girls – an R-rated Seinfeld, not that there's anything wrong with that.
Brad Wheeler