hall895 Perhaps the most damning thing you can say about a movie is that it stirs no feelings in you. If you absolutely hate a movie, well at least you feel something. XX/XY denies you even that. There's nothing worth hating. But there's certainly nothing to love either. There's just nothing, an emptiness. The story doesn't engage, the characters inspire no reaction. It's very bland, rather monotonous and sorely lacking in entertainment value.XX/XY is the story of a young man, Coles, played by Mark Ruffalo with a silly mustache. Coles meets young college student Sam. That would be a girl Sam by the way, played by Maya Strange. And Sam has a wild child roommate, Thea, played by Kathleen Robertson. Right after the trio meet they make their way to the bedroom for an exceedingly awkward threesome. They end up in a weird sort of friendship with Coles and Sam a couple and Thea floating around off to the side. And then Coles, who is at heart a jerk, does some jerky things and the whole thing implodes.It is now years later. You can tell it's years later because Coles no longer has a mustache. Now he's in a long-term relationship with a woman named Claire. They're not married but they may as well be, that's the type of relationship they have. And then out of the clear blue sky Sam shows up and you can guess what happens from there. Jerky Coles decides he's wanted Sam all along. Wild child Thea re-enters the picture too, although she's not wild anymore, actually settled down and showing some signs of maturity. Maturity is clearly not something Coles possesses. He acts like a spoiled child and screws things up all over again. Sam's not much better. Poor Claire is there to serve as the aggrieved party, someone for you to feel sorry for. But again this movie really fails to make you feel anything. The key characters are unsympathetic, but not so much so that you can muster up any hate for them. The movie just sits there, nothing grabs you. It's all very predictable, it's not all very entertaining. The best thing you can say about the movie is that the performances are pretty good. It's a fine cast, they just have no material to work with. The focus is on the trio from the first part of the film but if there's any truly memorable moment in the whole film it belongs to Claire. She has a moment where she states the truth about all that has gone on, bluntly and honestly, something nobody else is willing to do. It's a strong moment for the character and for actress Petra Wright. But the movie can't even let us have that moment. It cheapens it, essentially nullifies it, later on by having Claire do something she quite simply should not do. In a smarter, better movie she would do no such thing. Here it's the final unsatisfying piece in an unsatisfying film.

bob-790-196018 As one of the first of the Baby Boomers (i.e., an old guy) I found it difficult to watch this film about people born in the 1970s and college-educated in the 1990s without forcing myself to make allowances for generational differences.In the early 1960s, college women (then called girls) were still sexually modest and far too unassertive. The college women played by Maya Strange and Kathleen Robertson, Sam and Thea, are recklessly willful and without restraint in sexual matters--the exact opposite of their counterparts 30 years before. As a college man, meanwhile, Mark Ruffalo's character Coles has a certain charm and can be very affectionate but is essentially juvenile in his attitude toward women. As much as he seems to love Sam, nevertheless he has sex with her best friend Thea right before her eyes, as if to deny that his relationship with Sam is anything more than sex play. Thirty years earlier, he would have been regarded by his fellow males as--well, as an asshole.It turns out that in college, Coles was a slacker in training. Ten years later, he is bitter because his dream of a career as a movie-maker went nowhere, and he shows it in his contempt for the people in the ad agency where he works. He has entered the middle class without the responsibility that goes with middle-class living. He has lived for five years with a woman, Claire, who aspires to a grown-up life, with marriage and children, but he is unable to commit to her. They have a nicely furnished and decorated apartment (one imagines this is Claire's handiwork), and he has cleaned himself up a bit, but he is essentially the same feckless boy-man that he was in school. His perennial uniform continues to be the tee-shirt.No surprise that when Sam re-enters his life, it is not long before we are once again looking at Mark Ruffalo's buttocks as he has sex with Sam. Unfortunately, the worthy Claire accidentally happens upon the same scene.At the end, Sam marries someone else in haste, running away from the trouble that is sure to befall anyone who forms a relationship with the juvenile Coles. And Claire decides to give Coles another chance in order to salvage her five years with him and in hopes of having a permanent home and children. One doubts that she will be happy in the long run.Ultimately, Sam and Thea have at least made an attempt to lead grown-up lives,but Coles remains the same boy-man that he was in college. I expect that many Generation X women will not find this surprising.

Howlin Wolf ... Well, something to point out to the director, Mr. Chick: if the character who said this was in some way a mouthpiece for your own self, then you failed miserably! (I understand more how the guy who wanted his money back felt... ) All we have here is a tedious merry-go-round of people who make 'bad decisions' left, right and centre. When you're the objective bystander and a friend comes to you after yet another foul-up, in most cases you grin and bear it because the person you're listening to shares a bond with yourself; a connection. I wouldn't even have any feeling for all this if it were real-life friends I knew intimately. It's like being the only one sober in a room full of drunks - they're all too 'self-absorbed' to take seriously... ! The vast majority of people would surely be even LESS keen if they were hearing the troubles of some isolated stranger who they're completely alienated from? That's what this film is like - a random person accosting you in the street and acting like the 'Ancient Mariner', and all the while you're desperately looking for a way out...Why should I care about the infidelities and indiscretions of these characters when absolutely no sense of 'permenance' even begins to rear its head until past the halfway mark of the film, anyway? We've watched incredulously as they've been carelessly irresponsible, but hey, now we should automatically begin to care because... what, they're older? With age does not come greater significance; the mistakes you made at 20 are just as stupid if done at 35; so don't ask me to care to any greater degree just because this time life has made it sure that you have more to lose...It could have been 'emotional' in the heady, 'youthful' stage of the film had Thea been shown to be 'serious' about her thing with Coles; but she isn't, until she suddenly turns on the taps when he admits he 'meaninglessly cheated'; and the collective seem to be angling for an outpouring of sympathy for her! The other two 'empty vessels' at this point failed to make me care much, either... So, all of a sudden my feelings are expected to 'kick in' later on, just because the players have advanced in age? I don't think so, somehow! To get me thinking about relationships; I have to be able to say: "OK, maybe I don't agree, but I can see why you might've done that". Instead, all that was presented to me was a morass of those bad decisions that I talked about... It's nothing but pure undiluted LAZINESS to work from the stereotypical template that all college students fornicate first and ask questions later; and then take the bad habits of 'coupling' that they learnt when they were in study with them into the outside world. The most critical bad decision I made was to watch this; and about the only thing it made me "think" was how long before it was over, so I could go do something else.

rosscinema One of the refreshing things that this script has to offer is the depiction of it's characters without hiding their faults and allowing them to act and speak as real people would. Story starts out in 1993 where a young aspiring filmmaker and animator named Coles (Mark Ruffalo) meets Sam (Maya Strange) while at a party and they engage in a very clumsy menage a trois with Sam's roommate Thea (Kathleen Robertson) but it doesn't go very well. The three of them remain close and Coles and Sam start a very passionate relationship but after time passes things get rocky when Coles admits to sleeping with another woman and then after a party getting it on with Thea!*****SPOILER ALERT***** Ten years later Coles is living in Manhattan with Claire (Petra Wright) and working in commercials but one day he bumps into Sam and after talking some they agree to get together with Thea and catch up on things. Thea is married to a restaurant owner named Nick (Zach Shaffer) and very happy and while all of them are having dinner it's obvious that Coles has never stopped being in love and while Sam has feelings similar to his it's unknown to everyone that Claire knows what is going on between them.This film was written and directed by newcomer Austin Chick who is making his debut and his script remains sharp throughout the films duration and gives the viewer characters that are flawed but believable. The script never gives us unreal situations and the scene early in the film of the three of them experimenting with a menage a trois illustrates this by having the character Sam flee after knowing that this is not what she wants. A film that was just trying to sell tickets would have given a more erotic scenario with everyone involved having a good time. This film stays true with it's characters and they're realistic reactions to certain events. For me the strongest scene in the film involves the character Claire confronting Coles after he starts talking of marriage and she tells him that she knows precisely what is going on. It's a well written scene delivered very strongly and accurately by Wright who makes a nice little impact in the film. This film doesn't have any real thought provoking idea's to share but it does possess a script that is both refreshing and humanly accurate in the way it deals with it's characters.