XX/XY

"XX/XY" is a relationship flick about an FFM trio of young adults who become close, drift apart, and then rediscover each other years later only to find their reunion raises issues about mate selection. The film is a naive drone of chick flick yammering which fleshes out the core characters superficially leaving the audience to marginally engaged voyeurism. It does, however, paint a somewhat realistic picture of the trade-offs life requires as opposed to wandering into romantic fantasyland. An okay drama-lite for the less than middle-age crowd. (C+)

Perhaps the most damning thing you can say about a movie is that it stirs no feelings in you. If you absolutely hate a movie, well at least you feel something. XX/XY denies you even that. There's nothing worth hating. But there's certainly nothing to love either. There's just nothing, an emptiness. The story doesn't engage, the characters inspire no reaction. It's very bland, rather monotonous and sorely lacking in entertainment value.

XX/XY is the story of a young man, Coles, played by Mark Ruffalo with a silly mustache. Coles meets young college student Sam. That would be a girl Sam by the way, played by Maya Strange. And Sam has a wild child roommate, Thea, played by Kathleen Robertson. Right after the trio meet they make their way to the bedroom for an exceedingly awkward threesome. They end up in a weird sort of friendship with Coles and Sam a couple and Thea floating around off to the side. And then Coles, who is at heart a jerk, does some jerky things and the whole thing implodes.

It is now years later. You can tell it's years later because Coles no longer has a mustache. Now he's in a long-term relationship with a woman named Claire. They're not married but they may as well be, that's the type of relationship they have. And then out of the clear blue sky Sam shows up and you can guess what happens from there. Jerky Coles decides he's wanted Sam all along. Wild child Thea re-enters the picture too, although she's not wild anymore, actually settled down and showing some signs of maturity. Maturity is clearly not something Coles possesses. He acts like a spoiled child and screws things up all over again. Sam's not much better. Poor Claire is there to serve as the aggrieved party, someone for you to feel sorry for. But again this movie really fails to make you feel anything. The key characters are unsympathetic, but not so much so that you can muster up any hate for them. The movie just sits there, nothing grabs you. It's all very predictable, it's not all very entertaining. The best thing you can say about the movie is that the performances are pretty good. It's a fine cast, they just have no material to work with. The focus is on the trio from the first part of the film but if there's any truly memorable moment in the whole film it belongs to Claire. She has a moment where she states the truth about all that has gone on, bluntly and honestly, something nobody else is willing to do. It's a strong moment for the character and for actress Petra Wright. But the movie can't even let us have that moment. It cheapens it, essentially nullifies it, later on by having Claire do something she quite simply should not do. In a smarter, better movie she would do no such thing. Here it's the final unsatisfying piece in an unsatisfying film.

XX/XY feels undone.

Take the male adolescent fantasy of bedding two females and hopefully watching them bed each other, throw in some complications, and see where it takes us, is essentially the crux of this movie.

Unfortunately, despite the excellent camera work and sharp performances by the cast, something is missing in this screenplay in order for us to empathize with these characters. It's as if the writer wanted to give everybody equal screen time, but forgot to flesh out the true love interest--Sam, played nicely by Maya Stange. If Maya were further fleshed out as a character, the audience might actually feel satisfied by the end of this so so movie.

Too bad. There is a diamond in the rough here...but it is buried in shallowness.

Speaking of shallowness, considering the constant state of free love depicted in the movie, nobody seems concerned with STDs or AIDS. What's up with that?

I have a general positive bias towards this film because I have experienced so much of what many of these characters went through and thus was able to relate quite well. It is a film that is very in tune with the real emotions that one goes through when presented with such a bizarre situation. Even for those who have not encountered the kind of problems presented in this film it still will leave the viewer with many quandaries left to answer and will allow your mind to venture into places you did not know you could go. The writer of this film, I am almost sure, must have been through much of what was depicted in the film...it seems almost biographical. I look forward to seeing more of what this writer has to offer.

I saw this movie at the GenArt Film Festival 8 April 2003. As I watched the movie I kept wanting to like it. For one thing it is indeed an extremely realistic portrayal of a certain class of people. And it was introduced by the GenArt film programmer as being "young and hip -- very representative of our audience". And yet...for two hours we are treated to a portrait of a bunch of shallow, miserable, unhappy, selfish, clueless people with apparently no work responsibilities and no families and no relationships outside of their whining, mewling, sullen, mopey complaints about each other interspersed with bouts of apparently pleasureless intercourse. 45 minutes of the college version of this followed by 45 minutes of the soulless successful yuppie version of this. They cried, they screwed, they lied. They hardly ever laughed and it was a real strain near the end to watch them trying their damndest to have fun with a little karaoke. In the end, while I appreciated the skillful realism of the portrait, I couldn't get over the fact that I just wouldn't care about these people in real life. I made this comment in the Q&A afterwards and the director was intolerant. A few people afterwards came up and agreed with me. Also most of the reviewers on Rotten Tomatoes had the same impression. Still, it is valuable as a detailed anatomy of the insipid.