What
else are you going to do in a quaint little Canadian burg that still only has
dial-up? Watch hockey or read Anne of
Green Gables? Actually, the good townsfolk of Beaver’s Ridge are more
partial to the virtuous YA novels of local luminary Maureen Cranston. Make that
the late Maureen Cranston. Her black sheep sex columnist daughter has returned
for her funeral, getting an even more awkward reception than expected in Jeremy
Lalonde’s How to Plan an Orgy in a Small
Town (trailer
here), which
screens during the 2016 Slamdance Film Festival.
Back
in the waning days of high school, Cassie Cranston decided to seal the deal
with her boyfriend Adam Mitchell during a party. However, he wasn’t quite
ready. Through an unfortunate chain of events, Cranston was forced to do a near
naked walk of shame through town, while Mitchell curled up in the fetal
position on the bathroom floor. That was kind of it for Cranston and Beaver
Ridge. She moved to the big city and unloaded on the town’s prudery in her
first Carrie Bradshaw-esque column. They still remember that one.
In
fact, the town’s paragon of Puritanism, Heather Mitchell, Adam’s wife and
Cranston’s old nemesis, sort of over-compensates. She tries to enlist Cranston’s
help organizing an old fashioned Marin-county orgy. Cranston is incredulous and
slightly appalled, but she agrees anyway. She happens to be in a bit of a fix.
She is due to deliver her book to her publisher, but she hasn’t written a word.
Honestly, she is a bit of a fraud. Despite some research in sex clubs and what
have you, Cranston is still technically a virgin. If nothing else, a Beaver
Ridge orgy should be good material.
Of
course, there are about half a dozen colorful characters who agree to
participate in the swinging bash for their own reasons, including her trampy
bestie Alice Solomon, Solomon’s ED-afflicted ex, Bruce Buck, his suave new realty
partner Spencer Goode, and the ill-matched Mitchells. Some look good in various
states of undress, others not so much. Generally, the on-screen action is
mostly somewhat frank rom-com stuff, but that title is not metaphorical.
Plan is generally
amusing, but it is nowhere near as clever as last year’s Canadian underdog, Big News from Grand Rock. Stargate: Atlantis’s Jewel Staite is an
engaging screen presence, who finds just the right attitude for Cranston.
Katharine Isabelle certainly will not jeopardize her growing cult popularity
with her vampy work as Solomon and Lauren Lee Smith is rather spectacularly
prim and shrewish as Heather Mitchell. However, Ennis Esmer, who was terrific
in Grand Rock, underwhelms as her
doormat-like husband. Likewise, the realtors and the other assorted orgiers are
not so subtly drawn or nuanced.
