‘Swinging With the Finkels’ Review: A Flawed and Unsexy Comedy

Though the script is enriched with funny dialogue and whimsical pop culture references, “Swinging With Finkels” is quite boring.

The film follows a married couple who, after losing the spark in their relationship, decide to test their emotions and love for each other by searching for the perfect couple to have sex with. The mood and setting of the movie’s “swinger” coupling hints of awkwardness, and it fails to effectively capture the viewer’s emotions with its premise.

In the end, it winds up  feeling eerie and unrealistic.

It stars Mandy Moore as Ellie Finkel. Moore again displays strong and focused acting skills, playing the typecast character she knows best; but her book-smart acting style leaves Finkel seeming too detached. Martin Freeman plays a boring senseless husband, who only by losing his beloved wife, realizes what he had all along and tries to get her back. Though the comedy seems tailored for couples and the ladies, it could have been a perfect movie for a girls-night-out, but the cliché takes a different direction not far from the opening scene of the film.

With a predictable beginning and ending, modeless songs and unrealistic acting, the chances of this movie making it “big,” on the big screen are seriously hurt. The audience has seen this story before; two married couples, struggling with defining their relationships based on their friends’ families’ happiness. “Couples Retreat,” and “Valentine’s Day,” are two recent examples, except, unlike this movie, they turned out funny and decent.

The overall cinematography doesn’t help either. In 89 minutes, no scene was memorable or exquisite enough to warrant a meaningful mention. If you try to pause the movie a few times while watching, trying to catch that perfect picture, you’ll be unsuccessful.

In the end, “Swinging with Finkels” manages to be almost dreadful, it’s only potential sexual partner being cliché. The almost-hokey level of the couples’ resulting happiness following their disappointments, the revealing of their deepest secrets, and the matter-of-factness of the movie’s closing scenes do not give an audience the chance to grasp a single emotion long enough to really care about its characters. Unfortunately, fairy-tale endings have become the modern default ending for love stories, which can disappoint an audience that is looking for more than a bed-time story.