Glasgow Film Festival 2023 Review – The End Of Sex (2022)

It doesn’t seem so long ago that the question was “can men and women be friends without sex getting in the way?” But for the couple in Sean Garrity’s The End Of Sex, which gets its UK premiere at Glasgow, it’s moved on to “can men and women be married without sex getting in the way?” How times change.

Emma (Schitt’s Creek’s Emily Hampshire) and husband Josh (Jonas Chernick, who doubles as screenwriter) are the married couple at the centre of this romcom/comedy of awkwardness. Happily married and with two gorgeous daughters, it takes the girls’ departure for a week at camp to make the two suddenly wonder if the spark has gone out of their relationship. With just seven days to get it back, they embark on a series of adventures and encounters that not only take them out of their comfort zone, but make them start to see their marriage in a different way.

Starting where most romcoms will have long ended, the premise of this likeable Canadian comedy may ring a bell with couples in the audience. Whether any of them will go to the same lengths as the couple concerned to liven things up is quite another matter. Most of their experiments are fantasies which are best left within the confines of the imagination. And, while their attempts to spice up their love life are all designed to provide the bulk of the film’s humour, there is an underlying sense of a checklist. A threesome. Check. A sex club. Check. Drugs. Check. There’s also the work colleague who appears to revel in a colourful sex life and the inevitable awkwardness and embarrassment that comes with their various adventures, especially when they involve people in their social circle.

While we amuse ourselves by watching their stumbling attempts at changing the status quo – Hampshire and Chernick make an appealing couple – the inevitable question soon creeps in. Were they really so unhappy in the first place? The answer is obvious, they know it themselves and they’ve fallen into the trap of trying to be something they’re not. As the story enters its final section, wrapping it up in a comfortably romantic fashion is more of a struggle, but it just about gets there. In truth, The End Of Sex doesn’t bring anything especially new to the genre. It’s a gently funny look at the perils of modern marriage but, unlike the married couple concerned, it’s sadly unadventurous when it comes to exploring its theme in any depth.

★★★

Romance, Comedy | Glasgow Film Festival, 2 and 3 March 2023 | Bluefinch Films | Dir: Sean Garrity | Emily Hampshire, Jonas Chernick, Lily Goa, Melanie Scrofano, Gray Powell.

Watch our interview with director Sean Garrity, writer Jonas Chernick and producer Justin Rebelo