Writer and actor Jonas Chernick has found a home from home at Glasgow Film Festival. His last two films to screen at GFF, James Vs. His Future Self and Ashgrove were both very warmly received and his latest, The End of Sex, easily continues his excellent hit rate. As in Ashgrove, Chernick finds his own spin on a standard relationship narrative. But where the earlier film uses a sci-fi conceit to examine the pattern of routines established in a relationship, The End of Sex is all about what happens when those routines are disrupted.
Emma (Emily Hampshire) and Josh (Chernick) have been married for 10 years and their home life has revolved around their two daughters for the majority of that time. Still very in love with each other, their sex life has nonetheless flatlined in the background. When the two girls go off to camp for a week, the pair decide it’s a perfect time for the noisy, uninhibited lovemaking they never get to have anymore. But what used to work prior to the kids isn’t doing the trick, and so the pair to decide to try adventurous new avenues, and in doing so open up some fissures in their marriage they never knew were there.
There are several things that The End of Sex does very well that make it a standout romantic comedy. Firstly, it establishes a central couple that is completely believable as a long-standing, loving, and solid partnership. In Hampshire and Chernick there are two actors with an instinctive chemistry together, and Chernick’s smart writing incorporates the dialogue-free gestures and visual shorthand that a couple will develop over time. In fact, it’s when the two are learning new things about each other and they try to put them in to words that their solid foundations begin to wobble. As well as being a very funny and warm film, it’s also refreshingly frank and open about sex itself. There’s none of the timidity that waters down many romcoms that explore similar themes.
Sean Garrity directs with a breezy precision that makes light of just how much narrative depth and lovely moments of character (from the two leads, but also from three memorable supporting turns from Gray Powell, Melanie Scrofano – a scene stealer – and Lily Gao) are contained in its ultra-tight runtime. He also adeptly handles a recognisable shift in tone between the hilarious misadventures of the first two acts, and the deeper soul-searching that takes place in the third. It’s also nice to see Canada allowed to be Canada on film, rather than a tax-friendly locum for New York. The snowy exteriors provide a neat visual metaphor for the chill that begins to creep into the relationship when they step outside their domestic comfort zone, as well as giving the film a real sense of place. With some neat magic-realist touches thrown in, such as pop-up text appearing above the heads of people in a street scene telling Josh when they’d last had sex, it also demonstrates a willingness to try different things within the recognisable framework of the genre.
If one is completely resistant to a romantic comedy, then The End of Sex might not change your mind, but it is a superlative example of how to operate with a distinctive and personal voice inside certain rigid parameters. There’s also something more satisfying and grounded about exploring a new avenue within a well-established relationship, than the initial seismic impact of a new one. Most people spend much more time in the former zone, and many couples will likely engage with The End of Sex in a state of slightly uncomfortable empathy. With its various zany scenarios it exists in a heightened reality, but a recognisable one. In terms of its story, writing, direction, and performances, it doesn’t put a foot wrong.
Screening as part of Glasgow Film Festival 2023 Thu 2 Mar 2023 at GFT 2 and Fri 3 Mar 2023 at GFT 3