Review: A Good Old Fashioned Orgy

Film: A Good Old Fashioned OrgyDirector: Alex Gregory, Peter HuyckCast: Jason Sudeikis, Leslie Bibb, Lake Bell, Michelle Borth, Nick Kroll, Tyler Labine, Angela Sarafyan, Lindsay Sloane, Martin StarrRating: ***

First off, the film is not as scandalising as the title suggests. One would expect a slapstick comedy complete with sex crazed cliché characters and perverted humour that is more disgusting than funny, but surprisingly it’s not.The film opens at a “white trash bash” theme party thrown by a 30 something Eric (Jason Sudeikis) at his father’s summer house.  Eric is the ladies’ man, the alpha male and the lead wolf of a pack of eight friends who have known each other since high school.  Of course, this bunch is evenly divided into four men and four women because we wouldn’t want anyone to be left out in an orgy now, would we?  When Eric finds out that his father is putting up the summer house up for sale he, along with his sidekick friend Mike (Tyler Labine), decides to throw one last ultimate bash to mark the end of an era, an orgy party. Eric and Mike dive right into the task of researching orgies, planning the party, setting the right mood and convincing all their friends to join in.Now the orgy is not a desperate attempt by some sex starved men to get some, it holds some significance for each person involved.

For Eric it’s a way to come to terms with the fact that he is not a teenager anymore; for Sue (Michelle Borth), who is in love with Eric, the orgy holds romantic possibilities, for the introvert Laura (Lindsay Sloane) it is an opportunity to overcome her shyness. In a strange way the orgy becomes a journey they all need to take in order to find themselves. There are no startling realisations about life or any epiphanies but in one way or the other the orgy helps them all.The jokes are not too great or original but might squeeze a chuckle or two from you now and then. The Tyler Labine character is a cross between Zach Galifianakis’ in Hangover and Jack Black’s character in… well in all his films. Let’s face it, such movies need that one guy to make the other guys look decent enough to actually have sex with. A Good Old Fashioned Orgy is devoid of any unnecessary complication and is a light-hearted comedy that makes for a good time. For the release in India, a few sexually explicit scenes have been edited out but that hardly takes away anything from the film.