The Threesome

The Geometry of Consequences

Sex in movies rarely exists in isolation. It typically carries undertones of control, disconnection, or a desperate grab for feeling in a world that's gone numb. Chad Hartigan’s *The Threesome* opens with a sweaty knot of limbs and mouths, yet it isn’t primarily focused on eroticism. (That said, the camera certainly doesn’t shy away.) It’s more interested in what comes after: the rough morning, the awkward follow-up days, the moment the fantasy gives way to real-life biology. The setup could almost be an edgy sitcom pitch: a guy finally sleeps with his longtime crush, they bring a charming stranger into the mix, and soon enough both women are pregnant.



Hartigan has spent his career in the territory of isolation. *Little Fish* was a suffocating dive into memory and grief, so seeing him veer into a millennial rom-com feels jarring at first. I wasn’t convinced he’d found the rhythm for laughs. Maybe he hasn’t, at least not the conventional kind. The gags don’t always snap like those of a studio comedy, and tone drifts between absurdity and brutal sincerity. But there’s something clever underneath. By leaning into the strange geometry of a two-women-one-man arrangement where two-thirds of the trio are expecting, he sidesteps predictable rom-com beats. The movie forces these stuck-in-adolescence characters to figure out what real accountability looks like. *In Review Online*’s Joshua Polanski compared the fallout to “an *Uncut Gems* level of chaos.” Hard to argue with that.



Watch how Hartigan sets up the opening seduction. They’re playing Truth or Dare—an excuse as old as time—but the camera lingers in the in-between spaces. Connor (Jonah Hauer-King) sits to the right, watching Olivia (Zoey Deutch) and Jenny (Ruby Cruz) kiss first. When Connor finally kisses Jenny, her face stays softly blurred in the background; her arousal is there, but dulled, as if she’s already stepping out of the central story. The sequence is messy and intoxicating. The intimacy of the lens makes it hard to tell whose hand belongs to whom. We’re stuck in that fevered moment with them, which makes the daylight that follows feel that much harsher.



Deutch is doing something interesting here. She has spent years cultivating a rapid-fire, chaotic charm, but as Olivia she tightens everything down. Olivia becomes a shell—calm, guarded, her panic tucked behind clipped delivery and blunt bangs. When the pregnancy registers, she doesn’t melt into sobs. She simply stiffens, jaw clenched, silently mourning the end of her carefree twenties. Hauer-King’s Connor, by contrast, is a floppy Midwestern golden retriever who suddenly realizes the world he stumbles through is full of wolves. His role feels thinner—there are moments I wish the script gave him more to do than look bewildered—but his physical comedy, especially when balancing the demands of two pregnant women, provides much-needed silliness.

Then there’s Ruby Cruz. If Deutch is the film’s armor, Cruz is its exposed nerve. Jenny could easily have become a punchline, a plot device. Instead, Cruz plays her with a soft, disarming sweetness that short-circuits the other characters’ jaded posturing. (I keep picturing the porch scene where she nervously tells Connor; she twists her sleeves, whispers barely a breath, afraid to take up more space than she already does.) Her presence pulls the movie into real-world issues—how you navigate reproductive decisions in places like Arkansas—without turning it into a lecture. The film never preaches; it just sits with them in the waiting room. Whether that unease feels like a flaw or a strength depends on how much unresolved tension you can tolerate. In the end, *The Threesome* isn’t about who ends up with whom. It’s about the terrifying truth that once the lights go out, choices can’t be undone.