Threesome (1994) – DVD

**/**** Image A- Sound B+ Commentary B-
starring Lara Flynn Boyle, Stephen Baldwin, Josh Charles, Alexis Arquette
written and directed by Andrew Fleming

by Bill Chambers I first saw Threesome during its theatrical run, which coincided with the end of my freshman year at university. I liked the film enough back then, for what it didn't reflect of my experiences it evoked, and its characters suggested people I had met at school, maybe myself at that point, in the exaggerated, nay, grotesque manner of political cartoons. Which is a scary thought seeing Threesome again some seven years later: maturity (mine?) recasts its protagonists in a dark, contemptible light.

Although Threesome remains eminently watchable, I can no longer shrug it off when "concupiscent" Stuart (Stephen Baldwin) brings a fourth wheel, a blonde babe (Michele Matheson), to the dinner table with USC bedfellows Eddy (Josh Charles) and Alex (Lara Flynn Boyle) and proceeds to eviscerate her for telling the anticlimactic story of "a pretty meadow." The snatch of voiceover that follows courtesy of Eddy acknowledges, even if it doesn't quite atone for, the title trio's superiority complex, but I shudder because Hollywood went on to make a whole 'nother movie about that girl two years later, the cruel The Truth About Cats and Dogs. There, many viewers were/are too busy rooting for Janeane Garofalo's ugly duckling to notice the degradation of Uma Thurman's Noelle.

I shudder because openly gay writer-director Andrew Fleming (Bad Dreams, The Craft, Dick)–adapting, by his own admission, his college days for the screen–presents this as a feature, not a bug, of the rare harmony, otherwise and sexual, between Stuart, closeted Eddy, and Alex, the interloper who loves both boys for different reasons. (I'm reminded of Jerry and George on "Seinfeld" realizing that together they almost constitute a complete man.) If memory serves, at the time I coveted that kind of closeness without seeing it for what it is: the precursor to the codependence that destroys everyone at the end of Dead Ringers. While Threesome behaves progressively about a number of things (it is sexy and it isn't gutless), one side effect is that it sanctions elitism, never really finding fault with the central coterie's insularity. Threesome is hardly more sophisticated than the T&A romps of the early-'80s, defined as they were by their seductive eternal adolescence.

At times, in fact, Alex suggests a cousin to Porky's Ms. Honeywell, whose locker-room fetish made her an easy target of jocks. Similarly, Alex collapses into an orgasmic seizure whenever she hears big words. ("I find libraries very erotic," she says.) If that weren't cringe-inducing enough, when Eddy's recitation of Hawthorne brings her to climax at the library, the moment is dissected in subsequent scenes, as though talking about it will make it more plausible instead of just robbing it of its comic absurdity. Fleming can't seem to blend the silly and the serious without undercutting both–unlike, say, John Hughes, master of tonal modulations (The Breakfast Club's confessional sequence is miraculously untarnished by the corny drug-induced shenanigans that precede it)–and the show-and-tell narration only betrays his faithless direction. My guess is that Fleming lost his grip on the film to nostalgia, but I'm not about to do the same.

THE DVD
Columbia TriStar's DVD release of Threesome is very good indeed. The double-sided 'flipper' contains 1.85:1, 16×9-enhanced widescreen and fullscreen versions on opposite sides of the disc. Identical save for their aspect ratios (the letterboxing is actually matting), the presentation boasts flattering colours and above-average detail, with nary a hint of artifacting. (It helps that the movie's short and far from visually complex.) Somewhat surprisingly for a post-Jurassic Park title, the film was not mixed in 5.1, but the Dolby 2.0 Surround audio is fine. The songs–including, most memorably, General Public's "I'll Take You There"–sound better than they would on FM radio. Extras include a feature-length commentary from the low-pitched Fleming in which he reveals that the studio didn't contest the sex at all but did have issues with the aforementioned bimbo encounter! (I wouldn't go so far as to cut the bit, for at least it hits a nerve.) As long as he was headed in an unsympathetic direction, Fleming should've kept the superior, you-can't-go-home-again alternative ending, shown here with optional play-by-play from Fleming. Rounding out the platter are the obligatory "talent files" plus thematically relevant trailers for About Last Night… and Can't Hardly Wait, though none for Threesome itself.

94 minutes; R; 1.85:1 (16×9-enhanced); English Dolby Surround, French DD 2.0 (Mono), Spanish DD 2.0 (Mono), Portuguese DD 2.0 (Mono); CC; English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Korean, Thai subtitles; DVD-9; Region One; Columbia TriStar