Swinging with the Finkels Dir. Jonathan Newman

[Freestyle Releasing; 2011]

Styles: sex comedy
Others: Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, When Harry Met Sally, A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy

“How do you stay married to the same person and not get bored?” It’s an age-old question, asked by the titular Alvin Finkel (Martin Freeman) in Jonathan Newman’s Swinging with the Finkels. The question itself is rhetorical and not easily answered in the context of a light romp, especially because of the tendency to slide into formulaic arcs and wishful endings. That’s one of the great downfalls of popular cinema. When you try to appeal to a wide audience, there’s always a temptation to make the relationships work out in the end, to extol the triumphant power of love. In doing so, what’s compromised is what matters most: the minutiae. In this case, that would be the subtleties of heartbreak and doubt that define the trials of an unfulfilled marriage.

Swinging with the Finkels revolves around two London couples whose sex lives have plateaued. Alvin and Ellie (Mandy Moore), whose relationship is at the nine-year mark, blame their rough patch on fatigue and complacency. Their best friends, Peter (Jonathan Silverman) and Janet (Melissa George), are dealing with the same issues, but with two children, the unraveling of their romance seems more legitimate. The film doesn’t initially waste much time developing these relationships, preferring to set up their affairs with flatlining dinner jokes about male urges and sexual proclivities. Yet very few of these jokes are delivered with a sense of inflection or timing (except for an overzealous sight gag, which I’ll get to). They just roll out to the audience, sputtering and feeble.

The idea of a mutual fling is suggested to Ellie by her token gay friend, and when she proposes it to Alvin, he agrees without a moment’s consideration. So here we have a long-committed couple who suddenly decide they need a significant change in the bedroom, and they head full-bore into the swinging business. But rather than running with the concept as a frivolous little piece of camp, the film veers into more conventional territory, losing charm and personality as it moves toward an expected conclusion.

While the question at hand — how can partners make it work? — is always at the center of the story, the film’s fragmented nature and imposed flourishes detract from either serious or humorous discourse. For instance, scenes in the film’s first half are divided by interstitials with quips about sex, intimacy, marriage, and irreconcilable differences. It’s a device used out of necessity in silent films and with deft precision by Woody Allen. One could argue that Newman wanted the film to have Allen’s flair, with scenes broken up into individual set pieces, but the titles are abandoned once the real action starts, so in hindsight it feels like a tossed-off gimmick. It’s a minor distinction, but symptomatic of the larger problem of discontinuity.

On a similar note, the coupled friends are both half-British, half-American. This could be an attempt at commentary on Americans living abroad, or it could be arbitrary casting. The purpose of the stunt is unclear. Jonathan Silverman is especially out of place as a Londoner, but an explanation isn’t offered as to why he’s there. We only know that Alvin and Ellie met in college, which is revealed in a yearning flashback where Alvin’s youth is signified by bushy hair and a bohemian aesthetic. That they have aged together is thus demonstrated, but, again, the reason for the cross-cultural union is brushed over and seemingly irrelevant.

Although the writing is flat and the tenor is inconsistent, the performances in Swinging with the Finkels are all at least adequate. Seeing Moore in a wholly adult role seems odd at first, because some, like myself, may think of her only as a pubescent pop star or the terminal patient in that treacly Nicholas Sparks adaptation, but she pulls it off. Her transformation occurs in the bedroom, where she puts an ample cucumber to good use as a proxy for her disinterested husband. It’s by far the most memorable scene, utterly ridiculous, as her grandparents (one of whom is Jerry Stiller) walk in at an inopportune time and the cucumber becomes a rubber projectile. Stiller’s cranky shtick is a welcomed reprieve from the couples’ tired relationship banter, but his appearance is disappointingly brief, and it makes you wonder if the writer just threw the grandparents in so the scene could play.

In the beginning, being edited into a series of conversational clips, Swinging with the Finkels has the feel of a running joke, though one that’s more of a chuckle than a guffaw. If it had stayed with that tongue-in-cheek tone, it would have had succeeded to a degree as an evening’s diversion. But it doesn’t. Instead, it buttons up and calls itself drama, giving in to the illusion of idealized romance. The implications? That faltering marriages will find a way to mend themselves, that our desires should be sublimated. But, ironically, in the end, we still feel very unsatisfied.

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