Everything You Already Know About Sex

There’s really not much new about “Whole New Thing,” and that may be its fatal flaw. For a film that seems to think of itself as edgier fare, it steps too lightly to leave any sort of lasting imprint.This problem is evident from the get-go, as an awkward sexual moment sets the stage for a promising dialogue that fizzles mid-sentence. Emerson (Aaron Webber), a precocious teenager in the throes of adolescence, wakes after a wet dream only to endure the far more shocking and humiliating prospect of having to discuss such matters as sexuality and masturbation with his sexually liberated parents. But for all the teen angst that goes into this promising prologue, the conversations are quickly revealed to be all setup with no punch line, all tease and no follow-through.In a way, “Whole New Thing,” which opens today at Quad Cinema, is too nice to be the film it strives to be. The young, androgynous Emerson is the most interesting person of the bunch. A longterm product of home schooling, he is the hipster who sticks out in the crowd once he arrives in public school, far too sexually liberated and openly intelligent to fit into the school’s social mainstream. His affections quickly turn toward an older man, his English teacher Don (Daniel MacIvor), a gay man who’s grappling with a sexual identity crisis, terrified that his decision to leave the big city for the sticks has cost him any chance of finding love beyond the casual, public restroom fling.Underscoring all this are the ironic sexual struggles of Emerson’s parents, who pride themselves on raising a child unhindered in his sexual curiosity and uninhibited about his body. For all their free love philosophy, dad (Robert Joy) slowly discovers he has been neglecting mom (Rebecca Jenkins), and after some low-budget recon, discovers she is having an affair.With this much sexual material — a confused boy, a scared teacher, an agitated married couple — you’d figure we would come to some sort of deeper understanding about the ways of love and life. But the film’s dry, episodic structure impedes the story from rising above hackneyed fare.There’s a rhythm to this story, a cycle of agitation, discussion, and resolution, which seems so obvious and telegraphed that it could double as a case study for a screen-writing course. This is how a screenwriter should approach a first draft of his work, no doubt about that, but director Amnon Buchbinder, who co-wrote the film with Mr. MacIvor, segues from one conflict to the next with an obvious, plodding approach. The stitches in this story are left showing, and with each blatant flip of the page, the drama of these characters’ lives stalls and deflates.Arriving in theaters only a few weeks after the release of another movie about the struggles of teenage homosexuality — Cam Archer’s wildly pretentious but unforgettable “Wild Tigers I Have Known” — “Whole New Thing” exists on the other end of the spectrum, a not-entirely-pessimistic fable told simply and compassionately. And while nothing is particularly bad about the film, nor is anything especially revelatory or surprising.A young boy hits on his teacher, and the two grapple with a timely moral dilemma; a couple discover their sexual spark has died and seeks to reignite it; a frustrated gay man turns to anonymous sex in search of intimacy and is suddenly forced to confront his loneliness — these are powerful themes, but themes that have been explored time and again, to much greater effect.When late in the film a heartbroken Emerson confronts his teacher about his public restroom rendezvous, “Whole New Thing” for a moment offers a surprising new sentiment, reversing the roles of mentor and student, lovers and friends, and finding a new way of tackling a clichéd topic. But by that point, it’s become obvious how many punches have been pulled and how many daring conversations have been avoided.

Everything You Already Know About Sex

Everything You Already Know About Sex

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