BookendS

And it's exactly why swingers don't allow alcohol or drugs at swingers parties. What seems like a good idea when drunk usually isn't, and it had profound consequences.

Pretty good acting for an Indy movie, and a script written by someone who clearly understands spousal dynamics and they way weakness can crack things open.

...about a man who goes to a fair and there he sees people on a raised platform doing impressions of animal sounds; everyone is standing around and laughing and clapping at the contestants. So the man goes up on stage and starts squealing like a pig so hideously that everyone boos and jeers him. At this point he takes from behind his back a small pig whose ear he has been pinching to make the noises. "You fools!" he shouts, "See what you have been hissing?!", the moral of the story being, 'We often applaud the imitation and hiss the real thing'.

I believe that a similar effect is at work in this film and that is why the overall rating does not reflect how good it actually is.

My wife and I have been in the swingscene for the best part of 25 years; we have participated in television discussions and documentaries about it; I am certain it is fair to say that there is very little that we have not seen/experienced where that world is concerned.

Despite it being so long ago, we still remember VERY vividly the first few weeks and months of our foray into 'being more open' with each other and it certainly was not all plain sailing at the beginning! But we 'grew up' and we now take immense pleasure from our partner's pleasure... WITHOUT ALWAYS HAVING TO BE RESPONSIBLE FOR IT. It is truly wonderful if you can do it. It - as, indeed, is everything else - is in the mind.

Who do we think we are that we constantly strive to control the sexuality of others? The irony is that it is often those closest to us - the ones we purport to care most about! - whom we subdue the most, when actually what we should be doing is revelling in their pleasures, their passions, their LIBERTIES. If you love something, set it free: isn't that how the saying goes? Life is so damn short and yet we spend most of it fighting about something that should be so wonderful! And the majority of people live only half a life - women in particular, whose sexuality is far more fluid, erotic, imaginative and powerful than that of men. Men have been frightened of female sexuality for much of their existence and have consequently sought to subjugate and control them. We should all be embracing the wonders of sex instead of battling each other all the time over it! Have experience, history and LIFE taught us NOTHING?! What sick animals we are.

But anyway...

The conversations in this film are VERY realistic. The acting is excellent. Not only did my wife and I have similar interactions in the early days but also, as we became more experienced, we were more often in situations where we were the 'dab hands' and the couples we met were the 'newbies' and I can tell you that we certainly have been in scenarios where we have witnessed the full Harper-like fury!! We have also been present when couples insisted on having tearful heart-to-hearts about the states of their marriages (and absolutely everything else for good measure!). It happens. It is awkward. It is real. There is nothing new under the sun.

Sex is powerful. Sex is beautiful. The desperately sorry fact is that most people do not understand it and even fewer know how to deal with it.

I think that the people who produced this film deserve a lot more credit for the way in which it was done. Having said that, it is a shame, in my opinion, that they decided to make the experienced couple also partake of 'soul-searching' and it was the only thing that didn't entirely ring true, given the way the evening panned out and the respective relationships, but the writers can be forgiven for this as, for the 'uninitiated', it makes for a 'better', more accessible film.

Also, there is only so much that a film can portray when it comes to emotions and I suspect that the situation the couples were in would have come across much better in a book, where the thoughts of each character could more easily be explored. I always find it useful to imagine a book of a film I am watching as it can explain certain 'holes' in stories (that some people take great delight in criticising!) and I would say that, overall, they presented the situations in this movie well.

And please do not forget that fable.

Thank you for one entertaining and true-to-life portrayal of the most powerful and amazing driving force known to man (and woman).

I'm surprised that this doesn't have any reviews yet. It's actually a decent flick, made so by the actors. I get the sense that much of this was a sparse script with occasional dialogue but mostly made up of stage directions like "act as if you are secretly, but not so discretely, attracted to character X." Lesser actors would have been crushed under such pressure. This crew of four, however, handle it ably; even when said stage directions take turn and unlikely turn. I have seen movies and TV shows in the past in which the actors were in a small party setting and trying to pass off random, overlapping conversation as being spontaneous. Often though, these scenes become unwieldy and cartoonish: your brain perceives the deception in the same way it knows that the characters in a video game aren't real. The actors in BookendS seem to adlib their scenes of this nature (which are throughout most of the film) in a convincing way, however. Scenes with two couples talking amongst the four, or in sets of two, seems natural and realistic. That's great acting; it's extemporaneous on cue. Unfortunately, great acting can't carry an entire movie, as witnessed by {insert name of really bad movie with all-star cast here}. In the scriptwriter's defense though, there wasn't much to be done with the subject matter, save go straight up porn. They did what they could with it. We start out with a pair of couples chatting and drinking, then drinking and chatting. There's a revelation from one couple that they are swingers. There is a curious/intrigued/obsessed member of the other couple who can't get off the topic. This goes on for a while. FINALLY, they get to the swinging and swapping that you knew was coming eventually from the description of the movie. Okay. No problems thus far...some suspense as to how they were going to make the leap from friends to lovers, some well-acted party scenes to build up to that point, a plausible transition...okay. Now the director shows us that we are dealing with two very different swinging scenarios: one fast and exhilarating, the other slow and sensuous. Nice. But. Where to go from here. Will it be a days-long orgy with tantalizing sex scenes and maybe a cryptic, tragic, 9-1/2 Weeks type ending? Or, storm over, sex over, friends go on and pretend nothing ever happened? Both of those themes have been played and re-played. We've seen this before, right? Nope. The screenwriters throw us a twist, and, as unlikely as it is, it is welcome. It's something different that allows for more dimensions to the characters than most movies in this genre, indeed even the first two-thirds of this one, would allow. Then, the writers hit you with yet another couple of twists. Here's the rub, though: the subject of the movie is believable, dare I say, desirable. The twists are neither. They comprise the characters saying things uncharacteristic of the characters that we have come to know up to those points of the movie. Suddenly, my brain is saying "cartoon".

To summarize, whilst watching this flick, my mind said: "hmmm, okay, yeah baby!, ummm..., huh?, meh.

A solid Indie Movie Full of sexual Tension.

The Story While trapped at home during a hurricane, Harper finds out her husband's new friends are swingers and decides she wants to swap partners for a night of sex without fully considering the consequences.

From the beginning the sexual tension builds and builds till it erupts at the end It's a well put together indie film once you realise where the film is going and that they're stuck in one place trapped with each other .

It's almost like the storm at moments is causing them to act strangely well written ,well paced ,and good acting,good quality interesting themes .very sexually charged.

It's all about the relationships as long you're ok with (bottle Episodes) /1 location movies ,that are dialogue heavy I think you'll enjoy it (gives you things to think about).

(it's A perfect premise for an indie film if i'm honest) very well done.

Hated the Harper character in this film! Pain in the ass pointless film!