R.E.V.I.E.W.

I don't check out every movie Netflix thinks I might like, though I've rated enough things that it's getting fairly good at guessing what my opinions will be. On a separate note, I wouldn't call myself a huge fan of the various Stargate television series, but the work I did for about a year on a game based on the show did get me to enjoying it, and occasionally taking an interest in other projects that the people associated with the show have taken on.

These two seemingly unrelated things converged when Netflix recommended a movie to me that I'd actually heard of thanks to an interview with Martin Gero, one of the writer-directors who worked on Stargate: Atlantis. In the U.S., the film received a limited release under the title Y.P.F. In native Canada, the film had another name.

I'm not sure how family friendly this blog tries to be, but let's say the movie was called "Young People Fornicating." Look at the poster there on the right and figure it out for yourself.

While you can be sure that this title was chosen to be attention-getting, and to show up when you do a Google search (oh, not when you do a Google search, of course), it's not a mislead. That's exactly what this movie is about. It's five interwoven stories involving different characters. The stories never connect except for the common subject matter promised by the title.

Each story is a different sort of relationship drama (or comedy) played out with a different sort of history as the subject. There's a couple of exes getting back together. There's a married couple trying to spice things up. There's a couple at the end of a first date. There's two long time best friends trying out something different. And there's a guy and his girlfriend... and his roommate.

Some of these storylines are more successful than others. One or two manage to make a fair comment on relationships, though none reach any profound statement. In the end, you get a few laughs, and a handful of other good moments, but little more than what that title promised.

When you get down to it, this movie is trying to be a raunchy version of Love Actually. And it's nowhere near as effective. More than a few times, it comes off as what it probably really is: a writer-director frustrated with year after year of family-friendly science-fiction indulging an urge to do something more adult just for the sake of being different. And in a strange way, it comes off just like the average episode of Stargate: entertaining, but not lasting. (Though retract your claws, Stargate fans -- I will grant that there are a handful of really excellent Stargate episodes that do stay with you.)

Actually, I'm not even sure if I'd quite rank this film that highly, as I can only see rating it a C+. If you've never seen Love Actually, go out immediately and rent that. No need to stop and check out Y.P.F. -- under whatever title you choose to call it.