Title: Autoerotic
Directors: Joe Swanberg and Adam Wingard
Starring: Kate Lyn Sheil, Amy Seimetz, Lane Hughes, Kris Swanberg, Ti West, Frank Ross, Megan Mercier
A darkly comedic anthology look at the sexual confusion, appetite, insecurity and frustration of a group of modern-day Chicago couples, Autoerotic is an at once breezy and deadpan little indie film that doesn’t overstay its welcome but instead delivers a few pin-prick precision assaults on both masculine and feminine foibles and preoccupations, and then skitters away, pleased and laughing quietly to itself. It’s a subversive, mumblecore-type exploration of the boundaries of self-pleasure, and a nice little cinematic aperitif that could slot nicely with any number of tonier Hollywood explorations of lust run amok.
Unfolding as essentially four discrete short films, Autoerotic opens with a guy who is obsessed with the size of his penis, no matter his girlfriend’s assurances that it’s of significant length. After coming across an online review of penis enlargement pills, he orders some and starts downing them like candy; unique results ensue. The movie’s two middle segments revolve more around women. A pregnant married woman — distraught that her vagina is “broken,” as she’s currently unable to enjoy orgasms — convinces her husband to let a female friend lend her a hand in the bedroom, accidentally provoking expectations for a threesome. Another woman, unable to find release in the fantasies her boyfriend constructs, turns to public masturbation and other, increasingly dangerous self-stimulation in an effort to achieve higher and higher sexual thrills. Finally, the film concludes with a segment in which an engaged woman makes contact with a former boyfriend — hoping to have him delete video files of their past sexual experiences — and then finds herself stuck in a most unusual bargain.
Written by Swanberg, Wingard and Simon Barrett, Autoerotic is a fairly streamlined thematic exercise (each segment is between 16 and 19 minutes), further held together and unified by a lurking, almost voyeuristic visual scheme comprised of fixed camera set-ups, some of which are high-angle and could almost be security camera footage. Some of the sexual acting out is arguably without substantial roots or motivation (the public masturbation for instance, precedes a seriocomic monologue where the woman confides in her friend that she’s turned on by, “hot liquids, like coffee… the shape of beer bottles… really narrow streets… and people in uniforms,” which doesn’t jibe), but other bits (the male preoccupation with penis size, for instance) are instantly recognizable, and therefore easy to embrace in the sort of underplayed shorthand with which they’re undertaken here.
Unsurprisingly, the movie is laden with nudity, and sometimes sexy in its frankness, almost erotic by accident — which is of course part of the point, that no matter how much we intellectualize arousal and libido, it’s omnipresent, and apt to pop up in unexpected ways at unexpected times. The acting, meanwhile, runs the gamut. It’s all low-key and realistic, more or less — pitched in contrast against some of the extreme behavior — but certain performers do a decidedly better job of capturing the implicit inner lives and feelings of their characters, which is certainly a necessity in a low-fi comedy of this nature. While not every note rings true, films that tackle sex head-on and more or less honestly are at least interesting and different, no? Note: In addition to its select theatrical engagements via IFC Midnight Films, a sister division to IFC Films and Sundance Select owned and operated by AMC Networks, the film will be available on-demand nationwide later this month.
Technical: B
Acting: C+
Story: B
Overall: B-
Written by: Brent Simon
