Slice the Cantaloupe - My Awkward Sexual Adventure Review
By: Peter Howell
Toronto Star; April 18, 2013
Modern romance, ain't it a ball of confusion?
If you're not already dealing with the ins and outs of sexting, tranny bloggers and suggestible groceries, then a citywide catastrophe might well come along to harsh your love buzz.
Such are the trials facing our everyday heroes in My Awkward Sexual Adventure and It's a Disaster, two movies arriving at Toronto theatres Friday with promises of wacky relationship chuckles — but only one delivers.
Sean Garrity's My Awkward Sexual Adventure comes with deserved laurels as one of Canada's Top 10 picks for 2012, chosen by a TIFF panel after premiering at the festival last fall.
It's your standard nerd-meets-stripper scenario, but filmmaking sparks and a combustible cast set this rom-com blazing.
Winnipeg accountant Jordan (Jonas Chernick, who also wrote the mirthful screenplay) is planning a romantic Toronto vacation with his girlfriend Rachel (Sarah Manninen), whom he hopes will soon become his fiancée.
She has other ideas. Bored by Jordan's dull bedroom routine (he calls sex "gentle time"), she sends him packing solo to T.O., his heart in tatters. He can't believe she's leaving him, even after his player pal Dandak (Vik Sahay) points out that she's ignoring his constant iPhone pleas.
Jordan visits a strip club, with plans to make Rachel jealous by sexting back photos of a boob cavorting with boobies. His drunken stumbles land him on the couch of Julia (Emily Hampshire), a peeler who knows her way around a pole and a kitchen, but who is hopeless at anything to do with money.
Julia is as dire with debt as Jordan is with foreplay, and the two strike a deal: she'll teach him to be a better lover (and maybe win back Rachel) if he shows her how to avoid bankruptcy. Slice the cantaloupe, get out the leather gear and switch on the vibrator (and calculator).
It's the kind of thing you might expect to come with a canned laugh track, but happily My Awkward Sexual Adventure is packed with randy cheer, not at all afraid to push that 18A Ontario film rating to the limit.
Chernick and Hampshire make a grand pair, and just watch what they get up to with unsuspecting produce. It's kind of like Mighty Aphrodite meets Like Water for Chocolate.
