Young People Fucking

Released across the world under the title Young People Fu**ing (but without the censorship I imposed) it might not come as too much of a surprise that here in the UK the movie is not only going straight to DVD (when all other English speaking cultures saw it at the cinemas), but we are going to see it with an amended title of YPF. While its perfectly acceptable it seems for albums to get released in the UK with the F word present, it seems the movie industry gets the same sort of militant censorship it always has.

 

YPF is an interesting low budget movie that looks at a series of relationships surrounding the act of sex, there is a couple, some work colleagues, roommates, Ex’s, and best friends all who over the course of a night have sex. What separates the different stories are the status of the relationships and the lack of, or sometimes too much sexual experience.

 

While the movie features a variety of familiar looking cast, possibly the most know cast member is British actor Callum Blue, who started his acting career in Channel Four’s As IF, before moving on to the popular Grim Reaper based American comedy show Dead Like Me, where he played the loveable Mason. Here he displays a similar roguish charm to the character he played in Dead Like Me as a womanising employer possibly pursuing “the one” who just so happens to work in the same restaurant, for reasons left unknown this player decides that the woman he has taken home is different from all the other employees he has seduced before.

 

Other stories follow two roommates whose fading friendship means that the one in the relationship now has the excuse to act out his fantasy, to see his girlfriend have sex with his now estranged roommate, the tip of this iceberg being that the soon to be evicted roommate has something rather large to offer his one night only lady friend.

 

Bored of the dull sex life a woman one night decides that it’s time to drag her husband kicking and screaming into the new sexual generation. But Abby wants this night to enjoy anal sex for the first time, trouble being she is not going to be the one on the receiving end.

 

A couple of opposite sex friends through circumstance find themselves in a situation that was plotted out on the cards some years prior, that if they were ever feeling the need for sex but unable to get it, that they would help each other out. While the woman is all too eager, the man just cannot get the friendship out of his head.

 

Finally two long time partners now separated, having enjoyed a night out together decide to take things a little further, feeling that both should have gotten over each other. The idea of quick convenience sex comes with a razors edge when the subject of other lovers since their relationship dissolved is bought up.

 

YPF is a very cleverly knit story, and despite the fact that it’s all about sex, the conversation and visual images are surprisingly tame, you could almost say it’s a very innocent piece, having lured you in from the shock value of the title. Each story is cleverly developed with a good mix of humour and an underlying serious edge that does rightly raise some incredibly valuable questions and answers. I’m reminded of a movie I saw earlier this year called After Sex, though the messages here are not so straightforward. After Sex was the ultimate lesson for young people considering having sex for the first time, while YPF is all about pushing your boundaries when it comes to sex; its literally all about trying new and different things, and the effects that those different things has on a relationship.

 

What is so odd about YPF is that after the humour of the story as a whole, there are some devastating conclusions to the stories that quite literally have the potential to shake the foundations of the said relationships to the ground.  Trust is broken, sexual boundaries are pushed far too far, and some literally feel like they have been raped. Having delivered the horror of some of the conclusions, the envelope is pushed one step further by looking then at the reactions of those seen as the conquering party.

 

YPF is one of those movies you can watch as a disposable piece of entertainment or as something that needs some levels of deep analysis. When I watched the movie some seven days ago I took it to be a fairly lightweight piece, yet it’s only now as I write this review that I fully appreciate the harsh realities of the movie. And thinking on, that’s quite an achievement to see a movie just once and have two completely opposite views of the same film... Clever stuff indeed!

 

YPF is going to be available shortly on DVD in the UK.