Alex and Emily have recently relocated from Seattle to Los Angeles. While taking care of their young son, RJ, Alex is fearful of not being able to make new friends in Los Angeles, a concern that is mildly shared by his wife. While at the local playground, Alex has a chance encounter with Kurt, a friendly new-age type father, who invites Alex and his family over for dinner, eager to welcome them to the neighborhood. What begins as a quaint dinner becomes increasingly bizarre as the night goes on, with Kurt and his wife, Charlotte, being a peculiar couple to say the least. Patrick Brice's The Overnight is a fun comedy and surprisingly pensive relationship drama that does an excellent job at balancing these two elements. Relying heavily on its talented cast, Jason Schwartzman and Adam Scott being the true standouts, Patrick Brice's The Overnight is a film that works, due largely to its ability to stay one step ahead of the audience, being unpredictable as to where the night will go next. While the comedy is the lifeblood of the film, The Overnight's heart is predicated around the young married couple in Alex and Emily, who have begun to feel the effect of having a stagnant life, both sexually and emotionally, capturing the anxieties involved with the lifestyle choices they've made. Through the night they spend with the free-spirited Kurt and Charlotte, Emily and Alex in particular, leave with a better understanding of not only themselves and their own insecurities, but how theu affect their relationship, with the film delivering a tender, albeit slight message. Through raucous comedy, The Overnight captures the essence of what love is, using a rather hilarious finale to show the unselfishness of love and how the true nature of it is never self-serving, whether that be through sex or other needs or desires. This scene itself is a little hard to fully accept from a realism perspective, but that sacrifice Alex makes towards the end for the sake of Kurt perfectly symbolizes how love is a completely unselfish act. Featuring a talented cast and fresh comedy, The Overnight is an endearing and original comedy/drama that works more than it doesn't
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AuthorLove of all things cinema brought me here. Archives
June 2023
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