After ten years together and the arrival of two little girls, art teacher Emma (Emily Hampshire) and advertising designer Josh (Jonas Chernick) find that their sex life isn’t as active as it once was. . Taking advantage of the absence of their daughters, who have gone to snow school, the two suburbanites intend to regain the spirit of their youth in seven days.
Two feigned orgasms later, one is troubled by her reunion with Marlon (Gray Powell), an unfiltered gallery owner who woos her without subtlety, while the other seeks advice from Kelly (Lily Gao), her young and sassy colleague. This is followed by scenes as predictable as they are embarrassing during which Wendy (Melanie Scrofano), Emma’s shy bisexual colleague, turns for no reason into a sexual predator.
Oh no, The End of Sex is not the beige remake shot in Hamilton, Ontario, of the Threesome, by Nicolas Monette. Rather, it is the new original offering from independent Winnipeg filmmaker Sean Garrity (Blood good blood, The twelve strokes of midnight), who finds there his favorite actors, the irreproachable Emily Hampshire and the disarming Jonas Chernick, also screenwriter of the film.
It is moreover the presence of this endearing tandem, seen previously in My Awkward Sexual Adventureby the same Garrity, where the first embodied a friendly escort to the rescue of the second playing a guy dumped because of poor performance in bed, which makes The End of Sex a pleasant and digestible comedy. In the shoes of parents in a hurry and neglected lovers, both manage to give accents of truth and emotion to this collection of clichés on the drop in libido.
Modest production of dull invoice, The End of Sex advances at a mechanical pace like a sitcom running out of fuel. To spice it all up, Sean Garrity vainly multiplies comments and superimposed descriptions – a process that seems dated and redundant here. Apart from a few scenes shot outside, where the uniformity of the suburbs is underlined in grease pencil, The End of Sex comes down to a series of lifeless camera sessions, where even the extras seem totally indifferent to the action that takes place there.
And sex in all this? Bah, we have already seen more alluring on the screen. Whether it’s a morning encounter on the pillow of the marital bed, an attempted threesome, an evening in a swingers club or a stolen kiss after a drunken supper, everything is filmed with modesty, sheets or underwear, lace or of latex, always judiciously placed, in this wise praise of monogamy.
Almost ten years later My Awkward Sexual Adventure, it is surprising to note that Jonas Chernick approaches sexuality in the manner of a timorous virgin by concocting, once again, a story in which he cultivates unease to the fullest by placing his characters, often close to caricature , in humiliating situations. And this, without succeeding in making people laugh.