A Good Old Fashioned Orgy

A Good Old Fashioned Orgy has no ambition but is a lot of fun because of it. It may not be as sweet at heart as Our Idiot Brother, but this fun little throwaway offers strong performances from an ensemble of historically underappreciated bit players. What it lacks in drive, it makes up for in barrels of heart. Granted, this movie isn't exactly ha-ha funny; very little of it will leave you rolling in the aisles because there are, quite simply, too many cooks in the soup, too many stories to juggle and conflicts to resolve, not all of them inherently humorous. But this nice little coming-of-delayed-age story wisely shies away from treacly sentiment, and for that we should be grateful. Where does the orgy come in, though? We're getting to it, relax. What happens is that a Peter-Pan complex, ostensibly employed frat boy type named Eric (Jason Sudeikis), known for throwing popular themed parties at his father's shore house in the Hamptons, is suddenly facing the end of his reign: Dad is selling the house. Facing eviction, our hero gathers his motley crew of partiers (Will Forte, Tyler Labine, Lake Bell, The League's Nick Croll, among others) for one final, private orgy amongst friends to send the house off correctly.Our protagonists have been friends since high school, and it doesn't take long for icky emotional complications to emerge. Happily, the movie doesn't dwell on them for too long to amp up the melodrama, opting for speedy resolution instead of a drawn-out sapfest to move us to the orgy of the title (yes, it happens). What hinders the movie, really, is the lead character: Sudeikis is a funny, funny guy who is definitely ready for a lead role, but Eric seems like kind of a wet noodle; if the guy's not drunk you can barely even tell he has a pulse, and how he managed to get (and keep) a semi-legit looking New York job is a mystery the film never addresses. His flirty romance with a realtor (Leslie Bibb) has a lot of meet-cute moments, but never really clicks for some reason. The movie, then, belongs solely to Tyler Labine, who broke out as the slacker friend in the show Reaper a few years back, then recently had a resurgence as one of the monkeyologists in Rise of the Planet of the Apes. With another quirky movie out on the way (Tucker & Dale vs. Evil), Labine seems poised for a major run as a comedy player, and you can see why here: he practically bounces off the walls, all impish id and raging hormones, tequila-in-hand, a facilitator of terrible decisions. The guy seems to have alcohol in his blood and a permanent carnal lust -- love doesn't cut it -- for life; the twinkle in his eyes when Sudeikis announces the orgy suggests a randiness the movie should have, but seems to shy away from.As for the orgy itself? It's funny, but a lot less about the sex than the mushy feelings that inevitably come out during the clumsy proceedings. It's far from the raunchfest you'd expect, but it is kind of sweetly naked, as much a rite of passage as the virginity pact from American Pie. Complain about the lack of naughty humor all you want, but for all its faults, there's a certain logic to taking a movie about an orgy and saddling it with the message that all you need is love.

View the original article here