A film opens with a sexual encounter that leads to a car crash and a passenger's death, immediately altering the protagonists' lives. A wife then reveals infidelity and requests a divorce, prompting the husband to visit friends who practice an open marriage. The four adults attempt nonmonogamy with messy results, oscillating between desires for freedom and stability and chasing qualities their current partners lack. Their persistent dissatisfaction is portrayed as common, tied to the awareness of limited lifespans and the impossibility of experiencing every relationship or version of oneself despite cultural promises of limitless romantic possibilities.
Since then, though, I've come to think that a death is a fitting way to set the movie's events into motion. Carey ends up going to Paul and Julie's house alone, and during his stay, they tell him that their marriage is open. (They are "realistic" and "self-realized," they explain.) Carey pitches that setup to his wife, hoping it can save their relationship; she accepts.
And the four, lurching and stumbling, all take a very messy stab at nonmonogamy: yearning for freedom when they're feeling constrained and for stability when they're feeling unmoored, pining for whoever represents what their current partner doesn't, almost always appearing antsy. But that constant itch isn't unique to them; it's a byproduct, that brutal crash scene suggests, of the fact that their time on Earth-everyone's time-is terribly limited.
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