Threesome (1994)

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One girl. Two guys. Three possibilities…

Josh Charles (Dead Poets Society), Lara Flynn Boyle (Twin Peaks), and Stephen Baldwin star in this college romp about three co-eds who wander into a sexual threesome of sorts and survive to tell the tale. Threesome is partly auto-biographical, based on writer/director Andrew Fleming’s (The Craft, Dick, Hamlet 2) own college experiences. Fleming does a great job finding the right tone for the movie, highlighting the comedy without sacrificing the dramatic potential. The resulting movie is very funny, character-driven, and poignant without trying to hard.

The three leads are extraordinarily comfortable with each other and really shine in a handful of scenes where they simply must have been improvising. My favorite scene is one where the boys harass Boyle for bringing home a cheezy boyfriend with helmet hair. The final act almost gets a little too heavy and the ending is a bit melancholy, but Threesome is a movie I connect with on a personal level and I watch it often. It’s fun, it’s sweet, it’s progressive, and it takes me back to my own high school and college days. Great contributions by costume designer Deborah Everton, cinematographer Alexander Gruszynski, and composer Thomas Newman. The soundtrack of pop songs is pretty solid, too. With the late Alexis Arquette.

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