THE LITTLE DEATH (Josh Lawson). 96 minutes. Opens Friday (June26). See listing. Rating: NN
Where to watch: iTunes
You could call this Australian sex comedy a pervert’s take on Love Actually.
In an attempt to strengthen their relationships, multiple couples explore their depraved fetishes. These include somnophilia (sex with someone who’s asleep), dacryphilia (involving tears or sobbing), traditional role-playing and rape.
That last one is the most troubling subject for comedy. Director Josh Lawson plays a husband who doesn’t quite know how to handle his wife’s request to be taken by surprise and sexually assaulted. When the film premiered at TIFF last fall, the charming performance by Bojana Novakovic (as the eager victim Maeve) helped me swallow what would otherwise be distasteful.
A lot has transpired since September, most notably the Jian Ghomeshi scandal, making the film’s goofy take on consent in both the rape and somnophilia stories impossible to take lightly. The Little Death isn’t out to offend, nor is it trying to have a conversation about kinks. Instead, it exploits each contrived scenario for slapstick with results that vary from terrible to sublime.
The finest chapter comes at the end. A translator for the deaf (Erin James), working through video chat, connects a young caller to a phone sex operator. She reluctantly puts on a silent erotic performance in a scenario that starts comical and uncomfortable but mutates into something graceful and sweet.
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