Sleeping With Other People

Jake first meets Lainey when she is raising hell trying to break a door down in the hallway of his college dorm.  She’s trying to get to Matthew who she has a big crush on, but before she can get her hands on him, she is about to be thrown out by College Security before Jake jumps in to rescue her by claiming that Lainey is a friend of his and that he’ll take care of her.  He does in a way, as back in his room and the two of them start to bond, they discover that they do actually both have something in common.  They are both virgins, a situation that they rectify immediately on the spot.

Fast forward 12 years and Jake has just manipulated his latest girlfriend into dumping as he just can never ever be monogamous as she wants, whilst on the other side of town, Lainey is confessing to her boyfriend that she has been regularly sleeping with someone else. It leads to an accidental reunion when they both end up at sex-addicts meeting. It’s the first time the pair have met since Lainey walked out after their one night together , and this time they enter a pact to remain friends, but purely platonic ones.

Turns out that the man that Lainey has been having an affair with is the same one that she had the crush on back in college, and as torturous as it is for her, she just cannot bring herself to end it.  Jake on the other hand has issues with his infidelity which he now shares with Lainey as the two become besties. The pair become so very close and share everything including all the trials and tribulations of their latest dates that, but it never occurs to either them to get romantic with each other.  They have to go through hell and back, as hilarious as it is, until  they can possibly reach the point we all know that they were always going to end up at.

Writer/director Leslye Headland (‘Bacherlorette’) brisk-paced comedy amongst Manhattan’s fast set, attempts to tackle the perennial old question ‘can a single man and a single woman just be friends’. However although she doesn’t further the argument one way or another, she does get as many laughs that she can out of it in this very cute and raunchy rom-com.  Never one to shirk from getting amusement from their misery, there are some real gems of stand-out funny scenes such as Jake breaking up with his girlfriend who is determined to break all his bones at the same time, and when Lainey is trying to break up with her boyfriend he just insists on stealing the scene from her.

Pitch perfect casting led by Jason Sudeikis and Alison Brie as two would be/could be lovers, but also with some great supporting performances too from Amanda Peet, Adam Scott and Natasha Lyonne.

‘Sleeping With Other People’ is both much more good natured and definitely more sophisticated than Headland’s smash hit ‘Bachelorette’, and all more better because of it.