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If you want your love to last,
don’t sleep with your girlfriend’s friends. I gleaned
this nugget of wisdom from XX/XY, the new sexual drama written
and directed by newcomer filmmaker Austin Chick.
Do not invite her friends to share your bed, no matter how
good the idea sounds at the time. If your girlfriend is the
one who actually does the inviting, realize that this is a
one-time opportunity. You don’t have the right to screw
her friends without your girlfriend’s written permission.
Do not assume that she won’t mind. She will. And she
will leave your lying, cheating ass. Most importantly, if
your girlfriend catches you having sex with her best friend,
and she runs out of your apartment in tears as you chase after
her in a most romantic fashion to insist that it didn’t
mean anything and you really love her and only her, but she
won’t listen to you and instead runs into the subway
… whatever you do, do NOT jump the turnstile. You will
be arrested by undercover police officers. If you really want
her back, pay the buck-fifty subway fare.
XX/XY tells the story of Coles Burroughs (Mark Ruffalo), a
young Lothario who, back in 1993, was able to passively-aggressively
talk his way in and out of almost every bed in Sarah Lawrence
College. One weekend while up at that bohemian university,
he meets and seduces young Sam (Maya Stange). Of course, Sam
insists that they invite her friend Thea (Kathleen Robertson)
into their bed. To everyone’s surprise, once everyone
is naked and writhing on the futon, Sam finds the situation,
well, kinda weird. Coles sums up the event succinctly: “So
we’re all sorry. But we all had fun.” A bit too
much fun for Sam, apparently, so she decides that she would
rather sleep with only one person. At a time, that is.
For the following year, the three of them hang out around
college, drink, take drugs, act artistic, avoid schoolwork
at all costs, and generally act the way they believe young
beautiful artistic people are supposed to behave. According
to XX/XY, this entails the aforementioned drug taking, sleeping
around, and the wearing of artfully torn t-shirts.
Another thing I learned from watching XX/XY: I am never going
to be cool. I just don’t dress well enough. Why wear
3 t-shirts when one will suffice? Why have your pants sag
halfway down around your behind when there’s that perfectly
good belt that your mother bought for you on sale from the
Men’s Warehouse hanging from your doorknob? Hell, for
the first half of the film, Coles sports a ridiculous Fu-Manchu
mustache that somehow makes him more attractive to the co-eds
of the greater New York area. That artistic-ironic facial
hair thing never worked for me. I guess this is why I only
get to sleep with one woman at a time.
Anyway, after the passive-aggressive sex bomb Coles has managed
to destroy all of his college relationships, we fast-forward
ten years to present day. After some of the clunkiest expository
dialogue I’ve ever heard: “Hey, aren’t you
Coles Burroughs, the former film director?” we get to
see where the three principals have ended up. Coles has sold
out, making subtly sexist and racist television commercials
(his million-dollar idea, I kid you not, is an animated female
fish taco that demands that you “eat her”). In addition
to selling out to the advertising game, Coles has been living
for the past five years with his nice, but rather plain girlfriend
in their tastefully decorated Manhattan apartment. Coles is
content with his life, or so he believes, until he randomly
bumps into Sam on the street. Immediately, all of his feelings
for her come flowing back.
This is where the film starts to flounder. When the 21-year-old
Cole professed his love for Sam, I didn’t believe it
for a second, and neither did Sam. Yet we’re supposed
to buy it when the 31-year-old Coles says that he always loved
Sam, and is willing to sabotage his current relationship with
his girlfriend Claire (Petra Wright). He convinces himself
that he can find a way out of his current relationship and
into a new one without hurting anyone (specifically himself).
When the 21-year-old Coles acted this way, he seemed boyish
and naïve. When the 31-year-old Coles does it, he seems
like an insufferable prick. Why we’re supposed to care
about this guy, and who he ends up with in the end, is beyond
me. While well played by Mark Ruffalo (who hasn’t been
seen on screen for two years due to a scary brush with a brain
tumor), his character of Coles is so self-absorbed that I
was rooting for him to get caught with his pants down. And
what good is an on-screen womanizer if you can’t live
through him vicariously? Which is why the beginning of the
film was so enjoyable to me; it wasn’t until Coles started
to feel the repercussions of his actions that the film started
to drag.
One other thing I learned from watching XX/XY: I really miss
college. Back then, during those halcyon days, everything
seemed so innocent. I barely went to class. I had beer for
breakfast and liquor for dinner. And I spent my days sleeping
with many, many women. (Or, at least I tried.) Oh sure, my
GPA sucked and I almost got kicked out of school twice. I’m
also pretty sure I had a reputation as a pathetic womanizer.
But none of that matters now. Just like Coles, I’ve forgotten
all the bad days and the long nights spent alone. Now I only
remember that one wonderful night when I could have had two
women at the same time. Or at least, that’s what I’m
telling myself now. And no, I’m sure that they weren’t
giggling at my suggestion. Of course they weren’t.
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Photo:
Maya Stange, Kathleen Robertson &
Mark Ruffalo in "XX/XY"
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