There Are Smarts To Be Found in My Awkward Sexual Adventure
By: Ken Eisner
Georgia Straight; April 18, 2013
From Woody Allen to Ben Stiller, we've grown used to seeing neurotic comics tripping over their own mental feet while trying to get some dish to tolerate them in scattershot romantic comedies. Jonas Chernick, who wrote this surprisingly witty effort and stars as the fellow making the title confession, falls into this category, even if he sometimes comes across as more Paul Lynde than Paul Reiser.
His Jordan Abrams, a shorthaired Winnipeg accountant with few measurable ambitions, flips out when he loses the one thing that matters most to him: his relationship with a childhood sweetheart (Sarah Manninen), whom few will find all that sugary.
She dumps him, citing his bad-in-bedness as reason numero uno, and he heads to snowy Toronto, bunking with his old college pal, a goofy-haired sex machine (the very funny Vik Sahay) who promises to get Jordan back into the dating pool. But our guy only thinks of babes as tools to get his GF jealous. So he hooks up with Julia (Cosmopolis's Emily Hampshire), a stripper who poses with him for Instagram glory and, when that doesn't work, gives him love lessons he can carry back to Manitoba. Guess what happens.
The trajectory is predictable, especially once we discover that Julia is an extraordinary cook who dreams of opening a "sensuous" restaurant. (Hey, is this ending lifted from St. Elmo's Fire?) Director Sean Garrity, who previously collaborated with Chernick on the intriguing Lucid, doesn't care that much about character continuity, and Chernick too often goes shrill when trying to get serious. But the movie, which is smartly shot and edited, has an impressive amount of scenes that start outrageously and keep building to Marx Brothers levels of zaniness. This Adventure is kinda fucked up, but in a good way.
