Tropic Sprockets / The Overnight

By Ian Brockway

In “The Overnight”, the mayhem begins innocently enough, when Alex (Adam Scott) and Emily (Taylor Schilling) go on a walk to the park. There, they meet a smooth hipster Kurt (Jason Shwartzman) who quickly ingratiates himself to the harried couple, who recently moved to LA, from Seattle. Kurt senses that the couple is new to the area and wants to show them around. 


Although wanting to make friends in a strange land, they also feel a bit weary, not knowing how to take ‘s forceful, self deprecating manner. This film’s first anxious segment and the feeling is tangible. 


Kurt asks them to please come to a pizza party, given at his home. Though Alex clearly does not want to go to a stranger’s house for dinner right away, he does not want to offend. He passively agrees even though they are towing about their own cranky kid. Alex and Emily don’t know quite what to expect and in watching, you won’t either. 
 
The action unfolds very much like the passing of a real evening and there is plenty of time to be nervous. 
 
Much of the humor comes from the yearning to impress and to pump up the ego, under the gaze of a potential friend. 
 
Jason Schwartzman as the man who has and does everything is wonderful, as is Judith Godreche as his wife, who is equal parts of cosmopolitan and unseemly. But regardless of the drama that plays out, each character retains their individual humanness and their vulnerability. 
 
The tone of the film is a hybrid of “The Out-of-Towners” and John J. Avildsen’s “Neighbors” from 1981. And in the amoral coupling of Kurt and Charlotte there is even something of Patricia Highsmith. 
 
The dialogue is cringeworthy, madcap and singularly uproarious, all the more so because the lines are delivered so perfectly deadpan. Not since the heyday of John Waters have I heard such pointed outrageousness and I sincerely laughed out loud. The first bedtime scene alone will have you a bit creeped out, as the newlywed’s watch in confusion when their kid is serenaded by the anal retentive Kurt under phosphorescent light soothing perfumes and organ music. Such events are more shocking than the so called weirdness found in most horror films. 
 
Though it does spiral into The Far Out, the film never loses its hand on reality and consequences. “The Overnight” is a sneaky, daring and very funny film. Refreshing and hard to define, this film has some of the transgressive juice of the 1970s, when genres of cinema were more fluid and audience responses were often alarming. 

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