Even with the best-laid plans, life has a way of never working out exactly as we thought. Pep (Wieger Windhorst ) and Sjors (Kevin Hassing) have been a couple for several years now and still very happily in love and looking forward to fulfilling two of their dreams together: taking a year off to travel, and becoming parents. Then one-day Sjors takes a shine to Cas (Felix Meyer) one of his very young Grindr hook-ups who has just moved to Amsterdam and hasn’t yet got a permanent home.
Sjors invites him to stay for a couple of nights which rather irks Pep as he wasn’t consulted beforehand. Also as a freelance journalist Pep works from home, so Cas soon becomes a distraction. Soon however when Sjors leaves every morning to go to his corporate job, Pep is on the couch with Cas looking at re-runs of Twin Picks and listening to 80’s music.
There is always a frisson of sexual tension in the air when Cas and either of the men are around, but nothing occurs until after one drunken night the inevitable does happen and all three men end up in bed together.
When this becomes a regular event the dynamic in the apartment changes, and where once Pep was the one who wanted their young lodger to leave, it is now Sjors who feels threatened by the effect that Cas’s presence is having on their relationship.
The tension that starts to build between Pep and Sjors is even more exasperated when Sjors is reluctant to honor his commitment to their long-awaited around-the-world trip, not just putting it on hold, but implying they should cancel it completely.
This 50 minute long made-for-Dutch TV drama is refreshingly wonderful. It is at times tender, touching and funny too, but most of all the reality it deals out is both engaging and compelling. Filmmaker Joris van den Berg working with a script from Bastiaan Tichler makes the piece feel even more authentic by giving all three of the main characters the right ending, even if it may not be the ones that we secretly wished for.
Pitch perfect performances from all lead actors add to make this a delightful wee drama from start to finish.
Also on this DVD are two other shorts dealing with the effects of how being three can be so different than just two. Bed Buddies is a sexy little dramedy written and directed by Reid Waterer about three gay best friends who wake up in the same bed realizing that they had all had sex together. What follows is some funny soul-searching as they try to make sense of the unclear line between friendship and love.
Tri-Curious written & directed by Matt Guerin is the story of when one very nervous half of young gay couple is having second thoughts about the threeway that they had arranged. That is, until he opens the front door and sees him.
