The End of Sex

Directed by Sean Garrity, The End of Sex follows married couple Josh (Jonas Chernick) and Emma (Emily Hampshire) as they discover that they’re in a sexual rut after their young daughters go to a week-long camp – with the narrative subsequently detailing the pair’s ongoing efforts at shaking up their vanilla bedroom antics. It’s a decent-enough premise that is, for the most part, employed to distressingly lackluster effect by Garrity, as the filmmaker, armed with Chernick’s screenplay, delivers a hopelessly broad comedy that’s been suffused with a whole host of desperate, unfunny interludes and set-pieces – with the sitcom-like atmosphere paving the way for a laugh-free midsection that’s rarely, if ever, as hilarious as Garrity has obviously intended. (It’s difficult, for example, to see much humor in the central characters’ eye-rollingly over-the-top exploits within a sex club.) The picture’s failure is especially disappointing given the charming efforts of its talented stars and periphery players, and there’s little doubt, as well, that the sporadic inclusion of admittedly compelling sequences, including a honest conversation between Josh and Emma regarding her crush, only illustrates the undeniable potential that’s been frustratingly squandered here. By the time the silly, ineffective hidden-microphone climax rolls around, The End of Sex has cemented its place as a tiresome endeavor that indulges in some of the worst (and hoariest) conventions associated with the comedy genre.

** out of ****