Statistics say the average man thinks about sex once every seven seconds. "Conception" will have the average guy covered for a week.
"Conception," directed by Josh Stolberg and produced by Stephanie Sherrin (LA '08), is an hour and a half about sex. The movie, which recently screened at the Boston International Film Festival, starts out with Paul Reynolds (David Arquette) as a kindergarten teacher who is just asked the dreaded question: "Where do babies come from?" Although Paul tries desperately to avoid answering, the class gets a bit out of hand. The one know−it−all kid offers to tell the class and draws a picture to show some of the other kids. Paul, on the other hand, tells them the stork brought them.
Then we get to see the truth in action.
"Conception" is the story of the night that nine different children were conceived. This ruins any bit of surprise in the movie — not that there really needs to be any, but since it is clear what's going to happen, the audience is left saying, "Stop! Don't do it!" to about half of the couples in the film, knowing their pleas will inevitably be unheard.
The film follows nine different couples whose stories intersect. Julie Bowen ("Modern Family") and Gregory Smith play Tiffany and Will, a divorcee and her younger boyfriend who decide to make a sex tape, which does not end well.
Pamela Adlon and Moon Bloodgood play Tay and Nikki, a lesbian couple trying to get pregnant with the use of a sperm donor, while Sarah Hyland (also of "Modern Family" fame) and Matt Prokop play two tenth−graders having sex for the first time because J.T. (Prokop) agrees to give up eating meat for Tracey (Hyland).
Mark (Alan Tudyk) and Gwen (Jennifer Jostyn) are the couple that just had their baby six weeks ago, while Gloria (Connie Britton) and Brian (Jason Mantzoukas) are the couple that is desperately trying to have one.
Joel (Steve Howey) and Bree (Leila Leigh) just went on a blind date, Gina (America Olivo) won't let Tommy (Tim Griffin) back into the bed until he showers (even though they immediately proceed to sweat all over the bed while having sex), Laurie (Jennifer Finnigan) and Brad (Jonathan Silverman) are married and have to finish reading their chapters before having sex, and Carla (Leah Pipes) and Eric (Aaron Ashmore) are having makeup sex after a ridiculous fight.
Got all that? With so many couples and not much time, it would seem hard to get invested in each story, but Stolberg still manages to make us care. Tay and Nikki's story is one of the most layered and complex in the movie, and, according to Sherrin, they are the only couple directly inspired by real people.
"[Stolberg's] wife's cousin, who's in a lesbian relationship, inspired the story of Tay and Nikki," she told the Daily.
Nikki makes sure Tay is okay with not being the one to carry the child and, in one of the most funny and genuine moments of the movie, Tay lists all of the side effects of pregnancy, saying, "I think I can live without that." In their short time on screen, these two women come alive. We believe in them, we root for them and we celebrate with them when we discover they are pregnant, even though we already knew it was coming.
Unfortunately, this isn't true for every couple in the movie. There isn't much more to Gina and Tommy than Gina's flirtatious teasing and sex. When they're done in bed, they move to the shower. They clearly love each other — or at least clearly love sleeping with each other — but there isn't much for the audience to invest in.
The rest of the couples fall somewhere in between. Sometimes we sincerely care but, more often than not, we wonder why they behave so stupidly. Joel and Bree have sex and discover afterward that the condom slipped off inside of her. When Bree tells Joel she's not on the pill, her reaction is, "It'll all be okay — there's only like a one percent chance of getting pregnant, right?"
Taking less−than−responsible sex a step further, J.T. has been carrying around the condom he and Tracey end up using for four years. Then Gwen tells her husband they don't need to use a condom because she's lactating. Statements like these have the audience wondering if these people have ever even heard of sex education.
"Conception" is cute enough and quite entertaining but has some seriously unrealistic moments. Sure enough, at the end, all nine women find out that they're pregnant and we then travel back to David Arquette's kindergarten class. Nine children tell us how they think babies are made, and we discover each child to be the child of one of the nine happy couples. It's a sweet end to the movie but feels like cheesy Hollywood optimism that each of these nine children has a happy, complete family.
Would the 16−year−olds really be together four years later? Would they have even had the baby?
"I know it's not exactly real life, but it's a movie and these are extreme circumstances, and it would have been weird if we had one couple not together or not keep the baby," Sherrin said.
"Conception" is a good movie, but focusing a little more on the weirdness of real life would have made it a great one.
