Young People Fucking

From the joke-y shock value of the title on down, Young People Fucking is a rare and salutary contemporary example of English-Canadian moviemakers aiming for the marketplace with a film that, far from adopting Hollywood genre imperatives, actually accentuates those elements widely associated with our cinema — minus the perversity and depression, of course. These would be, in ascending order, a veneer of hipness, an emphasis on character and relationships, and, most of all, sex, sex, sex. The movie intercuts the assignations of four matched pairs (and one doomed ménage a trois): the first date, the exes, the couple, the friends and the roommates. The encounters are charted in stages, from prelude through to foreplay, sex, interlude, orgasm, and afterglow. In terms of quality, YPF is remarkably consistent for an omnibus film. That being said, the roommates segment has by far the biggest laughs (with Ennis Esmer a particular standout as the hapless, ambiguously motivated Gord), while the friends episode is the one that strays furthest into the kind of self-consciously cute writing that typically mars the Showcase, made-in-Canada programming the film often resembles, though the fine payoff and the sheer sexiness of Carly Pope as Kris make up for a lot. In the end, the film and its young, attractive cast, is a lot more likeable than you might expect. While it’s not Cronenberg, it does point the way toward a new-model Canadian cinema that may actually build an audience for our filmic product. Extras consist of the trailer and a jovial commentary by Gero and co-writer Aaron Abrams, who plays Matt.