I was hoping to see Young Washington this evening, but it's already gone from the nearest theaters. Among the available showings I hadn't seen, TI looked most popular. Maybe just as well, for promising something extra different from my expensive, humorless previous viewing. Not that I could tell much from one- or two-sentence summaries; it sounded vaguely like it could be Bad Shabbos minus Judaism.
Angela (Olivia Wilde, who also directs) invites upstairs couple Hawk (Edward Norton) and Piña (Penélope Cruz) to visit her San Francisco apartment, without the timely awareness or approval of her husband, Joe (Seth Rogen). She wants to make up for them having to tolerate renovation noises by showing them the results, and maybe she and Joe will finally have friends again. Joe would rather give them a piece of his mind about their noises, from sex at ungodly hours. It turns out that Hawk and Piña host orgies and would be interested in Angela and Joe joining....
Yup, a limited, normal setting with only four on-screen characters. Anyone else, including a daughter at a sleepover, is merely discussed. I don't know what the budget was, but I'm sure $29.2 million at the box office translates to a profit. We don't even get much music aside from occasional cello/double bass highlights when something goes worrisomely wrong.
I got nervous upon seeing the A24 logo, but this isn't my idea of gritty. The R rating is for swearing, explicit sex talk, and marijuana use, not nudity or unambiguous sex. Naughtiness doesn't make up the bulk of the humor, either; mostly it's in the natural dialog and sheer awkwardness of trying to be good neighbors despite inadequate preparation and low commonality.
I'm not sure how much to tell you about the personalities. At first I found sardonic Joe most relatable, but we diverge sharply on philosophical matters. It's no surprise that Wilde took inspiration from Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?; this almost comes across as a modern remake. As often happens in comedy-dramas, the drama is primarily in the third act, and its poignancy is actually kind of a relief after all the cringe.
Is TI worth its high ratings across sites? In a pinch. People in the theater chuckled or guffawed at various moments, so I'm glad I didn't watch alone. It's not quite the farce I'd hoped, but as mature comedies go, it does well.
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