By: debbie lynn elias
Come on! Admit it! The title alone – A GOOD OLD FASHIONED ORGY – has piqued your curiosity and interest more than just a little bit. Then look at the cast, a veritable Who’s Who of comedy – both in front of and behind the camera. And having seen this ridiculously funny, at times raunchy, always raucous, and always sweet romp, I say satisfy your curiosity and see A GOOD OLD FASHIONED ORGY. You won’t be disappointed. I unabashedly admit that I love it. Sometimes you just need a no brainer movie that makes you laugh out loud. I don’t know when I’ve laughed so hard at so many different things and yet walked away with a happy heart at the way laughter unfolds via true heart and heartfelt caring that our principals have for each other.
Eric Keppler and his Manhattanite friends – Mike, Sue, Laura, Alison, Doug, Willow, Adam, and the soon to be married but with baby already in tow, Will and Kate – have spent their lives sharing summers and weekends at the Keppler family summer home in the Hamptons. This has been their home away from home since high school and has been home to more outrageous, outlandish, over-the-top parties than any can remember, holding a more than a special place in each of their hearts. So imagine their distress when Eric’s father announces that he’s selling the house. Devastation is an understatement.
But while bemoaning the inevitable, the undeterred Eric knows what’s needed. One final bash to end all bashes. Should it be as big and flashy as the infamous White Trash Bash? Or the Fourth of July bashes complete with fireworks. No. In a flash of brilliance it hits him. An orgy. A quiet simple orgy for just the core group; minus Will and Kate given their baby and newlywed status. While Mike McCrudden is up for anything that involves alcohol and party mode, the rest of the group is less than enthusiastic…at first. But as plans move ahead for their end of summer, end of a lifetime marker that will take these 30-somethings into responsible adulthood, another wrinkle arises. The realtors are trying to sell the house before Labor Day setting the wheels in motion for more comedic fodder as Eric and the gang must thwart any sale until after they’ve said their final “good-bye.”
The acting is perfect for the respective characters. I am in total lust with the comedic stylings of Jason Sudeikis, not to mention what he does with his character, Eric. It’s not often you see a film like this where you have a group of 20 or 30 somethings that live to party BUT also realize that it’s time to grow up, move on, be an adult. That’s exactly what Sudeikis brings to Eric. He is the alpha male, the Van Wilder party liaison, but he also realizes that time marches on and so must each of them.
Nicely tying in that theme is the character of Alison who is played to the hilt with snide, know-it-all, condescending perfection by Lake Bell. And what can one say about Tyler Labine as Mike? A genius when it comes to physical comedy, he is the central pushed-to-the-limit comedic base around which everyone revolves. Labine leaves no stone unturned when going for laughs. Of course, being funny does present its challenges, particularly when everyone in the cast is known for comedy and the spotlight isn’t just on “you.” “”In the beginning the bits and being funny all the time was ****ing exhausting. Gradually, everyone started admitting that we all felt like we were the unfunny one in the group.”
Lindsay Sloane is still and always will be the shy, insecure nice girl Valerie we first met on “Sabrina the Teenage Witch” years ago. Because we know Sloane and her prior characters, we understand her as Laura and it tempers the film’s overall inanity, adding some real heart to the picture. Of course, the orgy concept was something very new to Sloane. “We battled our own personal insecurities and vulnerabilities… And Pete [Huyck] and Alex [Gregory], so intelligently, saved [the orgy] for the end of shooting where we would have a rapport and a friendship. But, it actually, in turn, made it more uncomfortable because we legitimately fell in love with each other. So I felt like I had an orgy with my friends. It was having to hook up with each other and then in front of each other. It’s already hard. It was kind of a very well choreographed dance that we had to do where you were covering bits and pieces but the people that you were already so close with are legitimately seeing your bits and pieces because they have to. I get a lot closer with Nick Kroll’s thigh than I ever thought I would!”
Another issue for Sloane involved her ass. “I didn’t show my ass. I showed everything else. I gave you enough side boobs to equal an ass! I don’t like my ass.” Which prompted the hiring of a body double much to the chagrin of Jason Sudeikis who tried to tell Sloane “that I’m sending a very bad message if I don’t show my own ass because it’s teaching girls to have poor self body image.” Needless to say, in the end, Sloane’s ass remains a public mystery.
Nick Kroll brings a droll obsessiveness to Adam is charming but even more engaging is his chemistry with Sloane. You really want to see Laura and Adam get together from the very start of the film, and not just in an orgy! Not to be missed are Will Forte and Luch Punch who, as Glenn and Kate, with minimal screen time escalate the humor tenfold. Unfortunately, as realtor Kelly, Leslie Bibb is the fish out of water. She doesn’t really fit with the mix nor does she fit in her character. I normally really like her performances, but here she rubs me the wrong way.
The real scene stealers, however, are veteran character actors David Koechner and Lin Shaye who you have to see to believe. They are beyond hysterical in the film but I understand there’s a lot more of them to see on the DVD! I can’t wait.
Although challenging to each actor on different levels, according to Kroll, “For some of us who come from a comedy background versus a more dramatic background, what I hope, and what attracted me to doing this movie, was that while it’s a total comedy, there is a real undercurrent of truth of what it’s like to be in your late 20’s and early 30’s and try to understand it. Hopefully, there’s an emotional depth that comes through and Pete and Alex have a bunch of characters up in the air that have a real emotional arc. . .There were a lot of things that played for various people in various ways and I think the support of the rest of the cast and Pete and Alex behind it all allowed for a really revealing and honest performance both comedically and emotionally and physically for a lot of people.”
Co-written and directed by Alex Gregory and Peter Huyck, A GOOD OLD FASHIONED ORGY is really a journey of self-exploration, pushing boundaries and limits, finding and testing the depth of yourself, friendships and loves and being able to come out on the other side with newfound realization and appreciation for each other and yourself. There is no guys vs the girls rivalry going on. It’s all about friends and this group that is really a single synergistic entity made up of individual personas that together, make a whole…and in this case, a whole lot of fun. Great care and construction is expeditiously and efficiently given to developing the depth and length of the friendships within the group. Personalities are quickly identified thanks not only to each actor’s spot on immersion, but costuming, snippets of work situations. We quickly know who each character is, where they fall within the pecking order of the group. Everything comes together, however, once they are all at the Hamptons house, and there is never any doubt that these people are, and have been, friends.
According to Huyck, “Our hope was that the focus was really on a group of friends and on friendship and that’s really the true line of the film. A lot of people already were friends and knew each other so that made it very easy. . .They would do a lot of that prep work where they got together a long time beforehand and would do dinner parties and really got to know each other.” Gregory echoes the sentiment. “The cast had really bonded in the period before shooting and it allowed for a certain kind of emotional closeness and camaraderie that you just can’t fake.” Nick Kroll credits “Pete [Huyck] and Alex [Gregory] for putting together a cast of people who would be game for not only doing an orgy but submitting themselves to becoming very close friends with a group of people. I think they were able to select people who seemed like they would have that and were just game for it.”
When it came time for that all important orgy scene, Huyck, Gregory and the cast were more than prepared. As Tyler Labine explains it, “We got brought to North Carolina about 2 weeks before we started production so we had ample time to get to know each other before we started shooting. There was much much alcohol in those early weeks.” Nick Kroll agrees, opining, “We really started to get to know each other. Orgy training. [Laughing]” But beyond the cast were the technical logistics of shooting the scene. According to Huyck, “We actually hired a storyboard artist just for that sequence [the orgy]. . .We wanted to make sure every shot was blocked perfectly so we would know exactly what would happen, how we were going to edit.”
Gregory gives much credit to the crew for the successful shooting on A GOOD OLD FASHIONED ORGY. ” We had a really awesome crew who were also part of the reason why everything worked. Our Director of Photography, John Thomas, shot both ’Sex in the City’ movies and many many episodes of “Sex in the City” so we knew he could handle sexual situations, particularly with women, tastefully, and make them feel comfortable and also make them look beautiful. He [also] had a good eye for how to frame talking comedies. We were in really good hands. Everyone felt safe and that were in good responsible hands and he wasn’t going to try and tricks or anything. I think that also helped get everyone on board.” Alan Hook steps in as Production Designer and nowhere is his work more notable than with the ultimate orgy scene. It is just breathtaking apportioned.
And the icing on the cake… Jon Sadoff’s score and an eclectic soundtrack mix by Music Supervisor, Peymon Maskan.
A GOOD OLD FASHIONED ORGY. A genuinely sweet, funny and fun film that just happens to include a friendly little good old fashioned orgy.
Eric – Jason Sudeikis
Mike – Tyler Labine
Alison – Lake Bell
Laura – Lindsay Sloane
Adam – Nick Kroll
Sue – Michelle Borth
Duquez – Martin Starr
Willow – Angela Sarafyan
Kelly – Leslie Bibb
Glenn – Will Forte
Kate – Lucy Punch
Written and Directed by Alex Gregory and Peter Huyck.
