The Overnight

This throwaway sex comedy is based on the idea that marriage is a lot like a penis: sometimes it’s hard, sometimes it’s not, and sometimes seeing somebody else’s can make you question the value of your own.

Alex (Adam Scott) and Emily (‘Orange is the New Black’ star Taylor Schilling) are high-school sweethearts who’ve just moved to Los Angeles with their young son. Enter Kurt (Jason Schwartzman), a local dad who meets Alex in the park and promptly invites his new neighbours over for dinner.

Alex and Emily feel like squares from the moment they step foot inside the mansion where Kurt lives with his sultry French wife (Judith Godrèche). But Alex doesn’t feel truly inferior until an impromptu skinny-dipping session gives Kurt the chance to whip out his (amusingly prosthetic) dick: a big reveal that explodes the playdate into a warm and fuzzy update of 1969 swingers classic ‘Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice’.

But where that film pushed boundaries, ‘The Overnight’ merely tickles them. And while it’s fun to watch Alex learn that the grass isn’t always greener, the story plays things too gently for his risks to feel real or their payoff meaningful.