-Can you find it in your heart to forgive me?
-I don’t have a heart.
Don’t let the first eight minutes fool you. This isn’t porn or soft porn or anything like it, although it is sexually charged and has an emotional eroticism that hovers in plain sight. Written and directed by Austin Chick, XX/XY, which debuted in 2002, asks (and tries to answer) the more barbaric questions about love and relationships that we turn a blind eye to for the sake of our own. And in this tale of wishful thinking, friends and lovers learn that they can’t keep these questions from surfacing if everything they think they’ve been doing right is actually wrong, and that if you have to ask, you’re probably not going to like to the answer.
Coles (played by Mark Ruffalo) and Sam (Maya Stange) like each other right away. They have a too-soon sexual encounter that involves Sam’s feisty, party girl roommate, Thea (Kathleen Robertson), and their relationship becomes a perverse saga from there on out. Sam and Thea have a habit of seducing men together, and they’re not shy about it, but by inviting Thea into the bedroom with her and Coles, Sam haphazardly asks for an unconventional arrangement that Coles gets too comfortable with despite Sam’s realization that she wants him to herself.
After that first night, they become inseparable, and somewhere in their exploration of what a relationship is supposed to look like, they fall in love. Meanwhile, Thea is along for the ride and her constant presence doesn’t feel displaced. But it should. Sam looks almost pathetic trying to build something normal while Coles is willfully disobedient because it’s the only way he knows how to be. Their lifestyle is a nonstop proclamation of chaos and contempt that can only go for so long before it breaks. And what’s left is too ugly to face.
Almost a decade later, the three reunite.
Coles is living with his girlfriend of five years, Claire (Petra Wright), Sam has recently broken off an engagement and is casually dating a much-younger guy (Joey Kern), and Thea is very happily married to a wealthy restaurant owner named Miles (David Thornton), who credits her for his success. Mostly because Thea, Claire, and Miles are likeable people with positive vibes, they all have the terrible idea of becoming best buds. This group hug leads to frequent hangouts and weekend getaways, and sometimes it’s too awkward to witness.
For instance, watching Coles and Sam try to downplay the seriousness of their former relationship is almost laughable. They’re either trying too hard to convince each other or themselves that their youth gave them permission to be heedless and cruel, but neither is selling what they’re saying, which is superior acting on Ruffalo’s and Stange’s parts. Coles and Maya might be more grounded now, but they’re still a lot of the same. Coles is incapable of appreciating what he has unless he can do whatever he wants with it (although age has made him a wee bit less egotistical and sadistic), and Sam hasn’t outrun her proclivity for flawed judgments and rash decisions that she then doesn’t know what to do with.
Thea, on the other hand, shows little trace of her former self. Her days of recklessness and promiscuity are behind her, and whatever hollow confinement she once needed to fill has been replaced with an esteemed self-awareness. Coles and Sam could use some of her maturity and wisdom, which she offers; but she can’t control them. They’re adults and it’s out of her hands. But like before, she’s a fated breech in their connection, in danger of once again becoming a casualty of their undoing.
Despite how erratic their so-called relationship was, and despite Coles’ failure to fully commit to Sam, he insists he still loves her. But does he? Thea isn’t so sure, and if anyone would know, it’s her. Coles’ inability to love the one he’s with is presenting itself as a pattern – and a problem. With no regard for the promises he’s made to Claire, whom Thea wants him to treat fairly, Coles can’t stop playing a game he’s never been able to win.
Is this the beginning or the end? And of what, and for whom?
Find out on Hulu. https://www.hulu.com/movie/xxxy-413cad1b-2fe3-49be-9cf9-104317444f7c
Certain Movies & Things 