There is nothing funny about sex addiction, or so we learned from Steve McQueen’s astonishingly bleak and hyper-real masterpiece Shame released last year. Shame took a brutally honest approach toward the disease – which so many people detest and refuse to believe exists – which resulted in a film strong in humanity and raw emotion. In Thanks for Sharing, directorial debutante Stuart Blumberg (best known for his work penning the glorious 2010 film The Kids Are Alright) presents the addiction as something almost equally human as Shame but manages to also make it approachable and somewhat funny.
Thanks for Sharing presents the story of three different addicts each in separate stages of their recovery and joined together by an Alcoholics Anonymous-style rehabilitation program. The film gives the most screen time to Adam (Mark Ruffalo); an average, middle-aged guy who sees sex in everything – advertisements, passers-by, billboards – and is making a thorough recovery (“I’m five years clean”) until he meets a sexually charged fitness fanatic Phoebe (Gwenyth Paltrow). It is here that his world of celibacy begins to fall apart, as he learns to confront sexuality as something which needn’t be suppressed while dealing with the complexities of a new relationship. As the film progresses, we learn that Phoebe may not be the shining light of perfection Adam envisions her to be. Presented as a dark premise, Stuart Blumberg manages to write each of his characters with both humor and humanity, enabling the audience to empathize with and laugh at their misfortunes. It is this tug-of-war between comedy and tragedy which really works in the films favor, especially as it takes turns to darker territory in the films second half.
Giving the film its harshest shades of black in Thanks for Sharing is the story of Adam’s sponsor “Big Mike” (Tim Robbins), an idolized veteran and father-figure of the group who must confront his inner-demons when his recovered drug addict son Danny (Patrick Fugit) returns after abandoning the family following a severe fallout. Both Mike and Danny are trying to regain each other’s trust while attempting to forgive and forget their past mistakes, making for a complex and emotionally harrowing father-son relationship which builds to a thundering conclusion.
“Call me Pink again, and your throat’s gone”
Interestingly, the story of Neil (Josh Gad) is presented as the lightest of the three, though his addiction is probably the most serious. Forced into therapy by the court for sexual assault (not funny), his character strangely provides slapstick comical cues throughout the film and presents the audience with yet another difficult emotional puzzle as we grapple with the seriousness of his addiction versus the flippancy of his caricature. When Neil inappropriately touches a fellow commuter on a train and is bashed over the head with a mobile phone it is presented comically, giving the audience the opportunity to decide for itself if this situation should perceive it in this way. Neil only begins to take his addiction seriously when he sympathizes and befriends Dede, a fellow support group member who has never had a non-sexual male encounter. Rookie actress Alecia Moore (a.k.a. Pink), delivers the biggest surprise of the film as Dede, providing the film with its most likable character and a strong, concrete female role in a mostly male cast.
“Her boobs were like, THIS big.”
Though Thanks for Sharing never reaches the dizzying heights of tragicomedy achieved by its contemporaries which also deal with serious illnesses (see: 50/50 or Silver Linings Playbook), the film presents a fresh examination of sexual addiction which has just as much chance filling seats in small theaters as it does in multiplexes. Led by Stuart Blumberg and Matt Wintson’s delicately complex screenplay and backed by an array of strong acting performances, Thanks for Sharing is one of those great little surprises of 2013 and a film which comes with a solid recommendation for those seeking a romantic comedy with a little extra edge from what we have come to expect from the Hollywood conveyor belt.
Written by Ash Beks.
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