Whereas the mega-fantasy phenomenon 50 Shades of Grey satiated willing audiences with ties and whips, a new little Australian sex comedy dominates from mining the humor out of the hilarious messiness that are the real-life repercussions of newly explored fetishes and fantasies within the relationships of struggling-to-remain-stable couples, in the ensemble-driven joy of a film, The Little Death.  

Further proving that audiences were ready to embrace and enjoy the more kinky side of sex in relationships, Death was honored as the Audience Award Winner of the Narrative Spotlight at this year’s SXSW. And there is certainly a whole lot to love here, as writer and director Josh Lawson’s  (Showtime’s House of Lies) directorial debut is a truly crowd-pleasing comedy, that wins audiences over by both appeasing naughty natures with adult language and appealing to heart-felt adult curiosities and confusions about the taboo topics.

The film takes its cheeky title from the French “la petite mort,” an idiom for orgasm. The varied sorts of foreplays and climaxes here are investigated by way of five suburban Aussie couples, each dealing with a particular fetish that pushes and pulls the partners together – emotionally and, yes, physically.

What works in Death is its winning combination of raunch in relation to its real relationship-building. We see each couple more or less starting things off with admittances and realizations of their being unsatisfied within their relationships in a multitude of ways, confessing to their partners before sleep, to their therapists, and with their friends. It’s a premise that sets the stage for its more adult-felt and aimed enjoyment, not interested in taking the low-hanging fruit of making an all-out raunch-fest, but using the edge to substantiate these earnest couples deeper desires – to just make things work between them.

It’s a premise that sets the stage for its more adult-felt and aimed enjoyment, not interested in taking the low-hanging fruit of making an all-out raunch-fest, but using the edge to substantiate these earnest couples deeper desires – to just make things work between them.

 

It’s a joy then, to see the comic riches that come from the performances of all parties. Among them are uninspired couple Evie (Kate Mulvany) and Dan (Damon Herriman), who attempt to save their relationship after their their couples’ therapist suggests introducing role-play to their life. The laughs in this couple’s story come in the comic turn that spurs Dan to realize a sudden desire to become an actor, and the over-commitment that comes in each attempt at role play to follow. In one such inspired scene, a terrifically funny Herriman as Dan, with dorky self-dedication similar to Arrested Development‘s Tobias-Funke, puts his method performance in action in a “doctor and sexy patient” set-up, yielding a hilarious overly-professional diagnosis: “I’m afraid it’s bad news.” “Well, I have been a very bad girl…” “– You have hepatitis.”

The more calculative and manipulative side of human fetish is explored in wholesome Rowena’s (Kate Box) re-awakened arousal for her longtime boyfriend Richard (Patrick Brammall), discovered when a shocking loss suddenly brings him to tears. “Dacryphilia,” as we learn, “the sexual arousal from tears,” (and as the film defines in dictionary-style pop-up to aid in explaining each of the couples’ more esoteric turn-ons) prompts Rowena to take advantage of the situation by proceeding to (after quickly jumping his bones) calculate more comic strings of pain to get Richard sobbing, from “losing” his dog or preparing select meals (“Onions again?”). Here again, the initial set-up of this couple, unsuccessful after many years of trying to get pregnant (which spurs Rowena to act on her more guilty impulses to achieve orgasm and therefore conception), allows the hijinks that follow to feel completely earned and has us rooting for all everyone involved along the way.

It’s with these equally funny and poignant set-ups that Death succeeds, displayed perfectly in the single third act vignette pairing Monica (Erin James), a video-conferencing signer who translates the signing from deaf callers to recipients via telephone, and hearing-impaired Sam (T.J. Power), who asks her to connect a call to a sex phone hotline. Of course, the funny comes in Monica’s windswept-ness, and hesitant proceeding to serve as the world’s most awkward middle-man between relaying the erotic dirty talk between both parties. And with this rolling, funny scene, comes that familiar thread of humanity that runs throughout the entirety of the film, in the chemistry found between normal, nice guy Sam, and Monica, who develop their own personal connection while laughing through the absurdly awkward situation.

There is so much to like in The Little Death, and first-time director Lawson (who also stars in the film, as a boyfriend whose girlfriend stuns him in admitting to having a “rape fantasy” that he stumbles through trying to fulfill) succeeds in managing to give the whole thing a thoughtful treatment to the taboo subject, which could have otherwise been a canned series of one-note bro-jokes in “National Lampoon”-style send-up. The Little Death is wholly engaging entertainment and would be a wonderful selection for couples and audiences that feel so inclined to have their adult-aimed excitements and curiosities titillated.

The Little Death is now playing at Sundance Cinemas Sunset.