Young People Fucking is such a distinctly Canadian film that I do not even think the SCTV players, in their early 1980s prime could make a parody out of this one. They’ve perhaps got the wrong title though. I would like to nominate “An Inconvenient Fuck” mainly due to the fact that Aaron Abrams and Martin Gero‘s film plays like a filmed Power-Point presentation. This wasn’t so much directed as it was assembled from familiar fonts and clip art. That is not to say that the film is not funny, or offer an insight or three about the funk that couples find a way to get themselves into whether they are married, exes, or on a first date. I found myself laughing away and uncomfortable in certain parts and enjoyed my way through it. But in hindsight, I’m not sure if I want my films to play like a Meyer-Briggs test for what ‘Quadrant’ I fit into. There are plenty of junk chain-emails to do that already.
The story is simple in that there isn’t a story. There are 4 couples (The Friends, The Exes, The Couple, The First Date) and a threesome (The Roommates) who over the course of a few hours get from (i.) Prelude to (vi.) Afterglow. Each couple (and a threesome) gets a single scene for each ‘stage’ of sex. Exposition and background are not that necessary because the characters are all cliches in one way or another. The production design of their apartments tells as much about them as the elements that can be gleaned by listening to them talk. The movie (according to the website) is aiming to say that each of the characters discover “that sex isn’t always simple.”
Duh.
I can’t think of a statement more obvious than that. Even if I try. It’s proven before you even start. Now some may say that a movie isn’t what it is about, but how it is about it. And here is where thinks get fairly quaint and politically correct, and the ending is ‘happy’ in its own way, although I don’t believe it earns it. I wish I had these peoples problems that can oh so conveniently settled over an evening of dysfunctional nookie.
I’ll take the politics and toe-tapping outrageousness of Shortbus or the nasty cynicism of Neil LaBute‘s Your Friends and Neighbors, heck, even the rough and raw earnestness of The Butler Brothers‘ Confusions of an Unmarried Couple over the eager-beaver YPF. Yes, I get it – it is supposed to be a straight up foibles comedy aimed at adults sick of seeing stuff like American Pie pass off as a ‘sex comedy.’ But does YPF really offer anything beyond a slightly-more-advanced sit-com? 2 Days in Paris and High Fidelity – Hell, even the worst offender, Clerks. – overcome their respective sitcom moments to offer something constructive or cathartic between laughs. I am suspicious if YPF ever adds up to anything more than the filmmakers being able to write a highly competent screen play, populate it with very attractive and adequate actors, and throw out something as glossy and plastic as this. I want my sex intimate, maybe a bit dangerous and above all, as it always is: Messy. The closest the film ever comes to this is the confusion of The Exes as to where they now stand on a one night stand. Not co-incidentally this is the strongest segment of the bunch and the one with the least pat summation.
Perhaps I expect too much from my comedies, but the great ones find a way to have things only a hairs breath from tragedy. Comedy and tragedy are Yin and Yang are they not? Isn’t that why so many comedians (Candy, Carrey, Murray, Lemmon to name a few) turn out to be great straight actors.
The clever placement of sheets and warmly lit smooth skin indeed gives this the feeling of an office application and not a movie. A financial report that leaves out all the bad news with snappy graphs and bright animations. And in the moralizing department, I think Young People Fucking is at the the level of Dr. Phil, not Dr. Ruth.
Matthias Glasner’s 
The film tells the unrelated stories of a number of individuals, all of whom appear to be little more than teens, somehow involved in the sex trade. Chantal is an escort, working to make money to support her boyfriend’s dream of recording an album. Melody and Courtney are high school students lured by a teacher into an on-line porn site while Balery, a call girl and dancer, employs Jaron to help her exact revenge on a cheap customer. Individually, the ideas for these stories are all interesting but they suffer from a number of problems ranging from poor acting to painful dialog.
