Young People Fucking (distributed as YPF in US and UK markets[2]) is a 2008 Canadian sex comedy film directed by Martin Gero, who co-wrote it with Aaron Abrams. The film's story is told in a linear fashion, alternating through a series of single-location vignettes connected by theme but with characters representing different archetypes. In each vignette, the characters try to have an evening of uncomplicated sex but are unable to separate sex from love.
Gero and Abrams began the development of the film in 2004, and wrote the screenplay for six months in 2005. Filming was done in Toronto over 19 days. The film, which contains scenes of simulated sex but no pornographic material, was at the centre of the Bill C-10 controversy that brought considerable publicity to the low-budget production, allowing it to have a relatively wide release in Canada for an independent film.
Young People Fucking intertwines the stories of four couples and one threesome as they have one sexual encounter each, which are divided into chapters: prelude, foreplay, sex, interlude, orgasm and afterglow. Each couple represents a specific relationship archetype. The first of the five is called The Best Friends because the characters, Matt and Kristen, decide to become friends with benefits. Their 20-year friendship initially makes this awkward because they know everything about each other– except that they each secretly knew the other once had romantic feelings for them. These feelings are rediscovered and acknowledged as they become intimate.
The second archetype, The Couple, is about Abby and Andrew, a couple in a long-term relationship who are having trouble enlivening their love life. On Andrew's birthday they try something new, a strap-on dildo that Abby received as a joke gift at a bachelorette party. Through role reversal, they find satisfaction, and a new understanding and appreciation for each other.
The third archetype is labeled The Exes. Mia and Eric, whose relationship broke up some time ago, have dinner and return to Mia's residence. They decide to have sex and although they say they are over each other, they clearly have feelings. They regret that their sexual encounter is not enough to overcome the unstated reasons they separated.
In the fourth archetype, The First Date, womanizing Ken returns to the apartment of Jamie, a flirtatious new employee at his workplace, where he has had sex with every other woman. Ken feels a connection and worries about ruining a possible relationship, resulting in awkward sex. Unsatisfied, Jamie admits to pretending to be an ingénue to appeal to Ken, and calls him a hypocrite when he complains that she lied to have sex. Ken is upset as he leaves but he quickly turns his charm on a woman in the elevator.
In the fifth and final archetype, The Roommates, Gord invites his roommate Dave to have sex with his girlfriend Inez. Gord initially demands affirmation and directs them while watching. Dave later prompts Gord to admit he is insecure about his adequacy for Inez, who is enthusiastically permissive and will happily do anything Gord wants. In this moment of honesty, Dave quietly admits to having a shoe fetish that has made forming a relationship difficult but Gord and Inez do not seem to hear. Dave and Gord find respect for each other and reaffirm their friendship. Inez suggests she'd like to watch Gord and Dave have sex together.
Cast
Members of the cast at an eTalk Schmooze event at TIFF (from left: Lisinska, Abrams, Pope)
Abrams, co-writer of the project, said he wrote most of the male parts for himself with the intention of taking whichever role they had difficulty casting. He has known Esmer since grade7 and had him in mind to play Gord. Abrams knew Oldring from comedy clubs.[3]
Writing and development
Writers Martin Gero and Aaron Abrams had the idea for Young People Fucking around 2004.[3] Gero thought most romantic comedies built to the point of intimacy while sex comedies tended to be about "losing your virginity or masturbating", and that there were no films dealing with "the complications of sex" and the resulting humour.[2]
Our generation makes an effort to separate love and sex. They're all trying to do this thing, and they're all failing miserably... We're saying, "Listen, people our age. This is really hard to do without being emotionally involved."
Abrams and Gero wrote the film in six months during 2005; Gero drew inspiration from Carnal Knowledge and Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice.[6] Gero and Abrams, who had not worked together before, wrote the script one segment at a time and emailed it to each other for rewrites. They intended it to be a short film because they did not think they could get a deal to make a feature-length film. Halfway through writing, they realized it was an "actor's movie" that would rely on its performances.[3]
The film's title was a working title that stuck. According to Gero, "we wanted to be frank and honest and uncensored". Gero said he and Abrams, as male writers, were initially most concerned about the depth of the female characters and that in their first draft, the male characters were comparatively underdeveloped.[2] Their first notes on the female characters came from actor Sarah Polley, who Abrams knew from Slings & Arrows.[6]
Production
In November 2007, three weeks prior to filming, the project's distribution deal collapsed when ThinkFilm was sold to American investors. Producer Steve Hoban moved quickly to secure a new Canadian distributor and investor that would accept the project without a cast, director or script change. On the strength of the script, Montreal-based distributor Christal Films signed up; it saw the film as a way of expanding its reach into English Canada. ThinkFilm retained US and international distribution.[6]
Young People Fucking was filmed in Toronto over 19 days[6] and cost $1.4million. It received $200,000 in federal and provincial tax credits,[1][7] and Telefilm Canada had a 30% stake in the film.[7] Labour costs were about $1million.[7] The crew were mostly hired from a children's show, where they were accustomed to working with sensitive performers.[3]
$160,000 was spent securing rights for the music used, though because of the film's title, the filmmakers had difficulty finding music that suited the scenes and then gaining the necessary permissions. They could not get permission to show any recognizable products, including brand-name condoms. During filming, the film was called "Young People" because the location manager did not think he could negotiate permissions under its full title.[3]
There were few technical shots in the film because of the tight filming schedule and because Gero wanted to avoid technical delays and the semi-dressed actors getting cold. The movie was shot on film because it consists almost entirely of interior shots and tight spaces. Production designer Diana Abbatangelo created the warm scenes. After filming, the filmmakers spent 18 days with director of photography Arthur E. Cooper doing colour correction to add "richness and crispness" to make it look like a high-production film.[3]
Controversy
Young People Fucking was at the centre of a Canadian political controversy.[7] In October 2007,[8] the Canadian federal government introduced the 560-page Bill C-10, which passed through the Commons unopposed. In February2008, news broke that it contained a clause allowing the government to retroactively strip tax credits from films the Heritage Minister deemed "contrary to public policy". What that meant and how it might be applied was unclear, and it was followed by several months of investigation by the Senate Banking, Trade and Commerce Committee, with testimony from the arts community and religious activists.[7][9][8]:346[10]
Writer-director Gero stated: "I think we're an easy target– we've got a swear in the title. And also no one's seen it. So it's easy for the pro-C-10 people, whoever they are, I've only met one, to say... this is obviously pornography, we want to shut it down".[11] Gero and Abrams noted that the publicity worked in the film's favour and expected the bill would die when the film came out and audiences saw it was not objectionable.[2]
Distributor Maple Pictures invited senators, members of parliament and staffers to a special screening in Ottawa on May 29, 2008,[12][13][14] but Conservative MPs declined to attend; Conservative aide Victoria van Eyk was fired when she ordered tickets for herself.[12][14]New Democratic Party heritage critic Bill Siksay found it "troubling" that the film was said to be undeserving of tax-credit support, saying, "I think lots of people will have a good laugh when they see it".[7] Liberal Heritage critic Denis Coderre rated the movie 3 out of 5 and said, "My Canada includes freedom of expression, and I do not think politicians should get involved in creation".[14] Heritage Minister Josée Verner said she was privately opposed to the clause.[15]
Backlash to C-10 was strongest in Quebec;[9] however some amusement was taken at the prudish Conservative reaction to the film in English Canada.[2] Marc Cassivi of La Presse called it hypocritical and wrote that the film has merely "le sex ontarien" (literally, the Ontario sex) with no pornographic material, no genitals to be seen and breasts usually clad in brassieres.[13]
The film was due to have a limited Canadian release in February 2008,[23] but Christal Films faced financial difficulty and waived its rights to the film. In mid-March, Maple Pictures took over as Canadian distributor and postponed the release to June13 to accommodate a modest advertising campaign[24][2] while taking advantage of publicity from the Bill C-10 controversy.[23][20][1][7] Maple hoped the quality of the work would allow it to play as "counter-programming" to summer Hollywood blockbusters.[24] The film opened in nearly forty theatres across Canada, including Quebec.[22][23]
In Canada, Young People Fucking was rated 18A, except for Quebec where it was rated 16A (titled Jeunes adultes qui baisent).[2] The film was rated NC-17 in the United States, which meant few theatres would show it and many publications refused to run advertisements. Rather than censoring material for an R rating, Hoban insisted on the original cut being shown.[25]
The film had a limited release in the United States[23] and in the United Kingdom. In those countries, it was titled YPF.[2] ThinkFilm International had deals in place to distribute the film in France, Spain, Italy, Russia, South Korea, South Africa, Turkey, Poland, Greece, Israel, Thailand and the Balkans.[26] Maple Pictures released Young People Fucking on DVD on October 14, 2008, with a commentary track by Gero and Abrams.[9][27] NC-17 and R-rated versions were released in the US.[25] It was released to Internet streaming services in early 2009.[28]
Reception
Commercial performance
On its opening weekend in Canada, Young People Fucking grossed just over $100,000, making it the eleventh-most-popular film for the weekend of June 13–15. It remained among the top-twenty most-popular films for the next three weeks[23] and played in Canadian theatres for three months.[3] In early 2009, it became the most-downloaded film on the Canadian iTunes store.[28] Glenn Cockburn executive produced one of the most successful and highest grossing Canadian comedies of all time.[29]
Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 41% based on reviews by 22 critics, with an average rating of 5.5/10.[30] On Metacritic, it has a score of 39 out of 100 based on reviews from 5 critics.[31]
Liam Lacey of The Globe and Mail rated it 2.5 out of 4 stars, describing it as well-paced, showing "an emotionally vulnerable and funny side" of sex, but with uneven characters. Lacey said it was appropriate for an American cable TV series.[32]The Toronto Star's Peter Howell rated it 3 out of 4 stars, calling it "very funny and insightful".[33]Now Magazine rated it 4 out of 5, noting that switching between the segments "gives the film the momentum of a door-slamming bedroom farce".[34] Ashley Carter of Exclaim! called it a "thoughtfully hilarious psychosexual study" with consistently solid performances.[35] Ken Eisner of The Georgia Straight found the film worked well and had some insights but did not probe deeply into the subject matter.[36]Septième art's François Petitclerc said the film's structure punctuated its fluid and convincing writing, and that the actors commanded their roles.[37] Brian Johnson of Maclean's wrote that the film is well-shot with some good performances but found it suffered from "squeaky-clean mediocrity" and unbelievable situations.[38][15] Shaun Lang of Hollywood North rated it 5.5 out of 10, finding it complicated, inconsistent and lacking a meaningful message.[39]
Justin Chang of Variety wrote, "Neither as extreme nor... as interesting as its troublesome title, Young People Fucking delivers what it promises", though he found the characters lacking and the dialogue repetitive.[40]Screen Daily's Leonard Klady wrote, "Neither documentary nor hardcore, it's an ingeniously constructed pastiche of sexual encounters presented affectionately and with humour".[41] Carrie Rickey of The Philadelphia Inquirer rated it 2.5 out of 4 and called it "pleasant rather than pleasurable".[42] The New York Sun's Martin Tsai found it "humorous and provocative" but said it might have worked better as a play.[43]
Film Threat stated that Young People Fucking "shoots Judd Apatow-styled raunch into previously uncharted stratospheres of frank sexual humor" but that the cast were too attractive to be believable.[44] Felix Vasquez of Cinema-crazed.com hated the "pseudo mumblecore" whining of beautiful people but appreciated the turnarounds in the second half and its message about love's fragility.[45] Stephen Garrett of Time Out rated it 2 out of 5, saying it is full of "jarring skips" that reduced the film into uninvolved sketches.[46] Rob Hunter of Film School Rejects gave the DVD a C+ rating, finding the film entertaining but uneven and erratic.[47]
Howell and Lou Lumernick of New York Post likened Young People Fucking to a raunchy reboot of 1970s TV series Love, American Style, saying the two texts share a format of characters working through their romantic issues.[33][48]Exclaim!'s Mark Carpenter said the quality is "remarkably consistent for an omnibus film"[49] while several other reviewers found the film uneven– though they frequently disagreed on which segments and actors they found better than the others.[50][32][47][39] Jim Slotek said the film stood out over time; he included it among his recommended Canadian films for St. Valentine's Day 2018.[51]
Awards
Young People Fucking led the Canadian Comedy Awards with eight nominations across all four film categories, receiving multiple performance nominations for the ensemble cast.[52] It won the Beavers for Best Direction, Best Writing, and Best Male Performance by Oldring.[53]
Kristin Booth won a Genie Award for best supporting actress. At the politically charged ceremony in Ottawa, Jay Stone of The National Post wrote that it was a "vindication" for the film.[54] Booth was also nominated for the 2008 ACTRA Toronto award for outstanding performance by a female.[55]
Vancouver is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the city, up from 631,486 in 2016. The Metro Vancouver area had a population of 2.6million in 2021, making it the third-largest metropolitan area in Canada. Greater Vancouver, along with the Fraser Valley, comprises the Lower Mainland with a regional population of over 3million. Vancouver has the highest population density in Canada, with over 5,700 people per square kilometre, and fourth highest in North America.
The Downtown Eastside (DTES) is a neighbourhood in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. One of the city's oldest neighbourhoods, the DTES is the site of a complex set of social issues, including disproportionately high levels of drug use, homelessness, poverty, crime, mental illness and sex work. It is also known for its strong community resilience, history of social activism, and artistic contributions.
Made in Canada is a Canadian television comedy which aired on CBC Television from 1998 to 2003. Rick Mercer starred as Richard Strong, an ambitious and amoral television producer working for a company which makes bad television shows. A dark satire about the Canadian television industry, the programme shifted into an episodic situation comedy format after its first season.
Gordon Edgar Downie was a Canadian rock singer-songwriter, musician, writer and activist. He was the singer and lyricist for the Canadian rock band The Tragically Hip, which he fronted from its formation in 1984 until his death in 2017. He is revered by many as an inspiring and influential artist in Canada's music history.
Mainframe Studios is a Canadian animation company owned by Wow Unlimited Media and based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Founded in 1993 as Mainframe Entertainment Inc. by Christopher Brough, Ian Pearson, Phil Mitchell, Gavin Blair and John Grace, the company established itself as a leading contributor to the introduction of computer-generated imagery (CGI) live action in animation, film and television.
Eric Neal Peterson is a Canadian stage, television, and film actor, known for his roles in three major Canadian television series – Street Legal (1987–1994), Corner Gas, and This is Wonderland (2004–2006).
Seth Aaron Rogen is a Canadian actor, comedian and filmmaker. Originally a stand-up comedian in Vancouver, he moved to Los Angeles for a part in Judd Apatow's series Freaks and Geeks in 1999, and got a part on Apatow's sitcom Undeclared in 2001, which also hired him as a writer. Rogen landed a job as a staff writer on the final season of Da Ali G Show (2004), for which the writing team was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series. Apatow subsequently guided him toward a film career.
Carly Pope is a Canadian actress. She is best known for her roles on The WB's drama series Popular (1999–2001), supernatural drama series The Collector (2004–2005), USA Network's legal drama series Suits (2016–2017) and The CW's Arrow (2016–2017).
Sonja Bennett is a Canadian actress and screenwriter. Her film debut was in the Canadian feature film Punch (2002), for which she won the Vancouver Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress in a Canadian Film. She has since starred in the films Donovan's Echo, Cole, Control Alt Delete, Young People Fucking, and Fido as well as the television series Godiva's and Cold Squad. In 2014, Bennett made her screenwriting debut with Preggoland in which she also starred.
Martin Gero is a Canadian screenwriter and co-executive producer for Stargate Atlantis and the creator of Blindspot.
Kristin Booth is a Canadian actress, born in Kitchener, Ontario. She graduated with Honours BFA from Ryerson Theatre School at Ryerson Polytechnic University in 1997.
Peter James Edward Oldring is a Canadian actor and comedian.
Ennis Esmer is a Turkish-Canadian actor, comedian, voice actor, writer, producer and presenter. He is best known for his roles as Osman 'Oz' Bey in The Listener, Kurtis 'Maz' Mazhari in Private Eyes, Nash in Red Oaks, and as Rich Dotcom in Blindspot – a role that was specifically written for him.
The 29th Genie Awards were held on April 4, 2009, to honour Canadian films released in 2008. The ceremony was held at the Canadian Aviation Museum in Ottawa, Ontario, and was broadcast on Global and IFC. The ceremony was hosted by Dave Foley.
Aaron Abrams is a Canadian actor and writer, who has worked in both film and television.
When Jews Were Funny is a 2013 Canadian documentary comedy film, directed by Alan Zweig. It was produced by Jesse Ikeman and Jeff Glickman for Sudden Storm Entertainment. The film features two dozen interviews with a variety of Jewish comedy professionals in North America and explores the role of Jewish humour in the context of North American comedy. The filmmaker asks whether earlier generations of Jews were funnier than the present generation and, if so, why. The film becomes more personal as its focus shifts to the filmmaker's desire to reconnect with a culture that has changed.
The 9th Canadian Comedy Awards, presented by the Canadian Comedy Foundation for Excellence (CCFE), honoured the best live, television, film, and Internet comedy of 2007. The ceremony was held on 5 October 2008 in Regina, Saskatchewan. The ceremony was hosted by Alan Park.
The 10th Canadian Comedy Awards, presented by the Canadian Comedy Foundation for Excellence (CCFE), honoured the best live, television, film, and Internet comedy of 2008. The ceremony was held at the Imperial Theatre in Saint John, New Brunswick on 2 October 2009 and was hosted by Seán Cullen.
Diana Frances is a Canadian comedian, writer, and business manager. She has written and performed comedy for stage, television and radio for three decades, and served as the managing director of the Vancouver-based Rock Paper Scissors comedy collective. She has been nominated for a Gemini Award and nine Canadian Comedy Awards.
Being Canadian is a 2015 Canadian-American documentary comedy film that was written and directed by Robert Cohen and produced by The Sibs, in association with Movie Central and The Movie Network. The film is an examination of Canadian identity and is structured around a cross-country road trip. Cohen interviews Canadian celebrities, most of whom are comedians.
1 2 Cassivi, Marc (29 May 2008). "Cachez ce fucking titre"[Hide the fucking title]. La Presse (in French). Montreal, Quebec: La Presse Inc. Retrieved 20 December 2018.
↑ Eisner, Ken (11 June 2008). "Young People Fucking". Georgia Straight. Vancouver, British Columbia: Vancouver Free Press Publishing Corp. Retrieved 22 August 2018.
↑ Petitclerc, François (11 June 2008). "Young People F***ing". Sep7.ca (in French). Retrieved 20 December 2018.
↑ Rickey, Carrie (11 April 2008). "The subject is sex, candidly". The Philadelphia Inquirer. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Philadelphia Media Network. Retrieved 20 December 2018.
↑ "Hot Box: TV worth talking about". The Toronto Star. Toronto, Ontario: Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. 5 October 2009. Archived from the original on 2 August 2018. Retrieved 23 May 2018.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
