"Afternoon Delight" Takes Marriage Out for a Romp

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Sunday, 25 August 2013 15:27

Written by Laura Blum

Afternoon Delight, as the title of Jill Soloway's debut feature suggests, has sex on the brain. That's not so much the case for its leading married couple when we first meet them. Rachel (Kathryn Hahn) and Jeff (Josh Radnor) live in the trendy, upscale Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles, where they're raising their son Logan. Since his birth several years earlier, the fizz has gone out of their bedroom.

Also draining libidos are Jeff's job and Rachel's lack thereof. Creating apps connects Jeff to the world -- and bankrolls the Architectural Digest home -- while distancing the conjugal relationship. For her part, Rachel cashiered her dreams of being a war correspondent in favor of motherhood, jogging and attending JCC events.

No amount of wine-and-chat get togethers with other mothers or sessions with a self-absorbed therapist (Jane Lynch) can cure the unfulfilled thirtysomething's ennui. To compound matters, she realizes how good she has it. "How can I complain? "Women in Africa walk 14 miles for water and get raped."

For an erotic recharge, Rachel arranges a couples' visit to a strip club. There she's treated to a lap dance by blond bombshell McKenna (Juno Temple), whom she soon hires as a live-in nanny. Rachel gets her big chance at making the world a better place, but whether it's the young "full-service-sex-worker" or herself that she means to help is arguable. It gives little away to reveal that Rachel appears as surprised as we are when sabbath rites redeem her saga.

Having written and produced TV such series as Six Feet Under, United States of Tara and How to Make It in America, Soloway gravitates to material that's out there yet still fertile for probing resonant themes. Comedy and adult don't always mix easily in Afternoon Delight, yet the tonal clash is offset by precisely Soloway's concern with real challenges of romance, career, family and community. 

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