thoughts on Sleeping with Other People

Alison Brie and Jason Sudeikis star as Lainey and Jake, who lose their virginity to each other in college on the first night they meet, then don't see each other again for more than a decade.  When they run into each other years later, she has just ended an on-again/off-again affair with a guy who she has been pursuing since college, who only sometimes gives her the time of day, and who has just gotten engaged.  She hasn't had any good relationships because she has been hung up on him for years; she keeps cheating on her boyfriends to go running every time Matthew (Adam Scott) calls.  Jake also hasn't had any good relationships; he tells Lainey that he has a recurring habit of choosing the wrong woman, being unsure how to end it with her, then sabotaging the relationship by doing something truly unforgivable like sleeping with her sister or best friend.  They go on one date that he initially doesn't realize is a date, then decide to just be friends; she isn't really ready to date, and given his penchant for messing up his relationships, he doesn't want to date her for fear of ruining any chance at a friendship with her.  It's clear to them immediately that there is at the very least an attraction there; they make up a "safeword" (mousetrap) to use any time they start to feel sexual tension.  It doesn't take much longer for actual feelings to develop.  More than once, they acknowledge that they have these feelings and try to figure out what to do about them; the answer is usually "just try to ignore them until we can't ignore them anymore and, in the meantime, date other people that we'll only end up hurting."

It's a little painful to watch.  You are likely to recognize yourself or someone you know in Lainey and/or Jake, but chances are you won't like what you see, and their behavior/patterns/mistakes are likely *just enough worse* than yours that you may feel a bit judgmental or superior towards them (like Lainey, many of us have probably let a romantic interest treat us disrespectfully, but hopefully not for as long as she lets Matt string her along; like Jake, many of us have probably treated a romantic partner badly, but hopefully not sleep-with-their-sibling badly).  It is hard to see what Lainey sees in Matt; it is also hard to imagine that Jake would be as bad of a boyfriend as he fears when he seems pretty good at recognizing, understanding, and acknowledging his own feelings.  Alison Brie mostly succeeds in making Lainey sympathetic; Jason Sudeikis's Jake is always a bit obnoxious, even at the best of times.  Lainey legitimately seems to have been hurt badly by Matt and need some time to work through that; Jake just seems to need to get out of his own way, especially given that we see, through a late-in-the-film relationship with his boss, Paula (Amanda Peet), that he's perfectly capable of being a good boyfriend when he wants to be.  Lainey and Jake are both engaging enough characters to watch throughout the film; you just wish maybe they'd either get it together sooner or move on.