Worst of 2015: The Overnight

 

The Overnight. Patrick Brice. USA.

Let’s hope in the coming new year that we see an end to the unsavory cinematic trend of using fake genitalia! As the most glaring and embarrassing example of a fad that’s been on a slow incline since Mark Wahlberg whipped Dirk Diggler’s bright shining star out in Boogie Nights, The Overnight finds Jason Schwartzman and Adam Scott donning fake dicks that look to have been stolen from the set of a Muppet porn shoot for an extended length of time, as penis size is just one of the many not-so-subtle themes that the film hacks through over the course of a single evening.

Essentially a cartoonish retread of Radley Metzger’s sexploitation masterpiece Score!, The Overnight substitutes high-class erotica and perfectly-executed camp for a positively unsexy and supremely unfunny exploration of a boring, white couple (Scott and Taylor Schilling) in Los Angeles’ “wild” night with a pair of wealthy swingers (Schwartzman and Judith Godrèche). The Overnight misses every target it foolishly tries to hit, whether that be attempts at playful absurdity with Schwartzman’s studio full of paintings of assholes and Godrèche’s part-time job as a breast-pump model or woefully sincerity about what it’s like to be a “modern couple” (you know, the kind where the woman can be the breadwinner). Whoever thought a night of skinny-dipping, pansexual orgies, and drug-taking could be such a fucking drag.

 

I’ll consider it a blessing that I only saw two films in 2015 that I truly hated (though I almost considered seeing David O. Russell’s Joy simply to add it to the list). I’ll be posting the 2015 Best Of throughout the week.

 

 With: Adam Scott, Taylor Schilling, Jason Schwartzman, Judith Godrèche