by Cyn’s Corner

So, I sat down for “The Threesome” (Regal’s September 1 Mystery Movie), and honestly, a lot of things just stuck in my craw. On paper, it promises a tangled “romantic comedy” with messy stakes: a spontaneous trio of adults, two pregnancies, and the fallout. But what I got felt less like messy truth and more like jarring convenience, poor decision-making, and unlikable characters.

Right out of the gate, Olivia (Zoey Deutch) rubbed me the wrong way. Casual sex with a married guy, stringing Connor along like he’s her safety net, and then barging back anytime he seems interested in someone else? That’s not simply her being free-spirited and indecisive — it’s just selfish manipulation. And Connor (Jonah Hauer-King) wasn’t much better. He’s the “unassuming nice guy” who tolerates every red flag Olivia waves, blind to the fact that Jenny (played quite adorably by Ruby Cruz) is right there, clearly a better match. Yet even when Jenny enters the picture on a more permanent basis, he’s still pining after Olivia.

The plot’s “big reveal” in the third act felt lazy, like someone just said, “Hey, what if we undo the core mess we created?” Meanwhile, Jenny — the one decent character — got dragged into this soap opera only to be pushed aside repeatedly, treated as collateral in the twisted relationship between Olivia and Connor.

Some of the messaging only irritated me further: a tossed-out “gender is a lie” line, the politically correct substitution of “unhoused” for “homeless,” and Olivia’s sexist complaint that “men should get pregnant — they’re already gross.” Connor himself gets scapegoated as the cause of the problem for both women, as if they had no agency in the situation. His stance on abortion was especially inconsistent — he resisted when Olivia considered one but was disappointed that Jenny didn’t. And Olivia’s hypocrisy was glaring: insisting her pregnancy wasn’t his “responsibility,” or problem only to demand money from him for the abortion she wanted because it was his “responsibility” — what? These kinds of contradictions just kept piling up.

Then came the contrived coincidences: both women sharing the same OB-GYN, going into labor at the same time, and giving birth in the same hospital. It felt manufactured, not organic — poorly written plot conveniences.

Saying I didn’t care about Connor or Olivia is kind. I was annoyed, to put it mildly. The acting had sparks — Deutch and Hauer-King were fine, and Cruz’s performance stood out — and I appreciated one visually interesting shot involving a mirror. But the positives weren’t enough to save a film that left me irritated rather than moved. The emotional payoff it wanted just wasn’t there. What we got instead was a narrative drained of emotional logic, celebrating a “happy ending” that felt neither earned nor honest. If “The Threesome” wanted to explore modern adult relationships, it could have leaned into the chaos with more nuance. Instead, the core truth — that poor decisions carry significant consequences — was buried under the weight of two unlikable leads the film expected us to root for. I did not.

Rating: 2/10.