THERE IS NO I IN THREESOME
New Zealand, 2019, 88 minutes, Colour.
Jan Oliver Lucks, Natalie Medlock, Simon London.
Directed by Jan Oliver Lucks.
Most audiences will watch this film as a personalised documentary, a record by the director, Jan Oliver Lucks, of his relationship with Zoe, their engagement, the plan for marrying in a year’s time, but allowing each other to have open relationships while deeply committed to each other. They give each other permission to meet other people, date, experiment, issues of same-sex relationships.
There is quite an amount of frankness during the film, especially with the opening, with the two on a very high diving tower at a swimming pool, their stripping, cameras to their heads, planning to jump together, Ollie jumping, Zoe not. Something a bit symbolic of what is to follow.
Ollie explains a bit about himself and has contact with his mother (Indian-Iranian) in India. He mentions that he likes a certain number of rules because his background is German, his father. We also meet Zoe’s parents as she takes them to the open air location for the wedding, and it is raining.
The film goes on with very frank talking to camera by Ollie and Zoe, about their emotions, about their devotion to each other, their being apart, their dating other people and the effect on each of them as they get to know other partners, Ollie a young woman, Zoe dating Tom, the director of a play she has written. The relationships move to varying stages of intimacy.
There is a frank episode when Ollie spends the night with Tom and he reflects on what this has meant to him.
Perhaps it is obvious that the relationship between Ollie and Zoe is not going to last – even though we might hope so. There are various scenes of tension, discussions, parting of the ways.
Those in the know will not be surprised but the majority of audiences will be surprised, perhaps dismayed, to find that this is not a real documentary, something of a mockumentary, the story and the sequences staged. While Ollie is actually Jan Oliver Lucks, Zoe is, in fact, the New Zealand actress, Natalie Medlock, and Tom is the New Zealand actor, Simon London.
Judging by reviews and bloggers, many people resent having been deceived, having been taken in – but, that was the filmmakers’ intention, to explore the theme, but to be mischievous towards its audience at the same time.
While the film does dramatise a precarious relationship and the risks of its collapse by mutual permissions for open relationships, it is not exactly the most profound of explorations.
