By Kathryn Boole
- FILM REVIEW
- THE THREESOME
- Rated R
- 112 Minutes
- Released September 5th
This is a well-written love story encompassing all the complexity of real life, with our three heroes treading precariously on the edge of the cliff over the pitfalls of broken love. They navigate the morass of today’s legal, social, and moral edicts while pulling hard against the passions of the heart and the strong ties of friendship. The movie is well-cast, and director Chad Hartigan tells the story in a heartfelt narrative with many of the surprises, disappointments, and revelations we are familiar with in our own reality.
Hartigan was born in Cyprus and is a citizen of both the US and Ireland, so my guess is that he has a grasp of universal behaviors that make our humanity recognizable from culture to culture. Hartigan has written and directed for television. He has not yet directed many films, but his work, including This Is Martin Bonner (2013), Morris from America (2016), and Little Fish (2020) has been nominated for and won awards. The Threesome has already won the Jury Prize for Best Feature Film at the 2025 Annapolis Film Festival.
This is the first live-action film written by Ethan Ogilby, who is best known as a writer for animation and as associate producer on three remastered TV movies, Who Shot the Sheriff (2018), The Lion’s Share (2019), and Massacre at the Stadium (2019). The Lion’s Share is a documentary about South African journalist Rian Mahan’s search for the original writers of the folk song The Lion Sleeps Tonight, a classic that took the US by storm in the 50’s as “Winoweh” by The Weavers, with Pete Seeger and the Gordon Jenkins Orchestra, which was later popularized by The Tokens in 1961. Ogilby and his team researched the origin of the song, written in 1939 by a Soloman Linda, a South African musician. I hope to see more films written by Ogilby.
Zoey Deutsch stars and is executive producer on The Threesome. At 30, Deutsch has a resume that looks as if she’s had a 50-year career. The daughter of actress Lea Thompson and director Howard Deutsch, Zoey started taking acting classes at age 5. She’s also been an ardent ballet, jazz, tap, modern, and hip-hop dancer since early childhood. She has done music videos and has appeared as a regular on television series such as The Suite Life on Deck and Ringer starting in the 2010s. Zoey made her film debut in 2016’s Everybody Wants Some and 2018’s Set It Up, both opposite Glen Powell. In The Threesome, she endows “Olivia” with a sarcastic edge that eclipses her vulnerability and hides her genuine yearning for connection and love.
When I first saw Jonah Hauer-King this past July in I Know What You Did Last Summer, I felt his talents were underused. Here, he is the center of the “threesome” and anchors the film with a powerful performance. Hauer-King played “Laurie” in 2017’s Little Women and appeared in A Dog’s Way Home and The Little Mermaid. In this movie, you can see his depth as an actor, as his well-meaning character, “Connor,” has such intense life-altering situations to deal with that it’s a wonder he’s still sane by the end of the story.
Ruby Cruz, who plays the third member of the threesome as the wholesome, religious “Jenny,” is in real life quite different from her character. Cruz, who is part Mexican, is proudly gay. She grew up in LA, the daughter of actor/ punk musician Brandon Cruz, and began auditioning in her teens. She was cast as “Kit Tanthalos,” the first openly lesbian Disney princess, in the Willow TV series in 2022-2023. Cruz appeared in the comedy Bottoms (2023) with Rachel Sennott and Ayo Edebiri, and she plays “Ash” on the series The Sex Lives of College Girls.
The Threesome is a great date-night movie. People will be drawn by the title to go to see the movie, and then they will find they walked into a much deeper study of humanity’s flaws and the jagged edges of deep relationships. The cast are relatively unknown but highly skilled and talented actors at the beginning of what will be most likely stellar careers.
You will be pulled into the story completely by their ability to bring their colorful characters to life. The story is funny, tragic at times, but always letting the laughs win out. After the first few minutes, the film is not about the threesome; it’s about each of the three human beings involved, beings who are playing that board game we call reality with thousands of moving pieces of emotional baggage, each fervently reaching out for survival of the psyche.
Kathryn Whitney Boole has spent most of her life in the entertainment industry, which has been the backdrop for remarkable adventures with extraordinary people. She is a Talent Manager with Studio Talent Group in Santa Monica. kboole@gmail.com
