Poly-ish Movie Reviews

Yet another movie named "3" - will this one have some polyamory in it?  Or will it be another cheating film?  Joreth reviews the German film Drei, or 3, for polyamorous content.

3 couples struggle with the definitions of monogamy and fidelity, after some "insight" from Jason Alexander.  Joreth reviews this film to see if any ethical non-monogamy could possibly come out of it at all.

There are so many movies called "Three"!  Is this one that actually has polyamory in it?  Is there really an FMF triad like on the cover?  Are any of the characters polyamorous?  Or is this just another cheating cautionary tale or threesome gone wrong story?  Joreth reviews this particular "Three" to find out!

Can a movie with blockbuster names be a poly movie?  Joreth reviews Bandits with Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thornton, and Cate Blanchet to see if there is any polyamory in this star-studded film.

Can a movie set in the '60s and filmed in the '90s really feature a polyamorous quad?  Joreth reviews The Blood Oranges for a little-seen poly structure to see if there is any polyamory in it at all. "Husband and wife Cyril and Fiona explore new ground and new relationships when they take a vacation in the tropics. While on holiday, the pair meets another couple, Hugh and Catherine, and their three children. Relationships become intertwined when Cyril and Fiona lose their inhibitions and seek sexual intimacy with Hugh and Catherine in this erotic drama." So Netflix says. It sounded pretty promising, and yeah, I think this fits under the "poly-ish" heading. Cyril and Fiona are clearly in an open marriage with both of them openly supportive of each others' interests. Honestly, though, I was surprised to see that this movie was made in 1999. It just felt like another '60s sexual revolution type of film, not the least of which was a slightly predatory personality from Fiona and a pseudo-sex cult leader attitude from Cyril, but also it just kind of looked like it - the cinematography and lack of a soundtrack, I think. Here's what I liked about the movie: An attempted quad instead of unicorn hunters looking for the hot bi babe The newbie love interest struggles with deeply indoctrinated beliefs of fidelity & ownership Neither the polyamory nor society around them was responsible for ending the relationships How non-traditional parental relationships affects children old enough to have internalized society's messages about relationships A couple not letting their pre-existing relationship make the other relationships "secondary" and doing what's best for the family instead of "protecting" their couplehood at all costs Here's what I didn't like about the movie: The characters I like serious dramas, but I'm really picky about them. I don't tend to like movies that I describe as "very French" - filled with unnecessary angst and smoking and existential ennui and desolation. Unfortunately, in movies that explore alternative sexuality, if it's a drama and not a comedy or something uplifting, I too often find it's one of these types of dramas. Such was this movie for me. I didn't like the movie, but that's based solely on personal taste. One might say that I have no taste, since I'd rather be watching cheesy '80s sitcoms, so there you go. I'm extremely character-driven in my entertainment preferences and I just didn't like the characters. I found Cyril to be pompous, elitist, and blind to his own privilege, even if I happened to appreciate his understanding that possession should not be part of interpersonal relationships. I thought Fiona was selfish, predatory, and naively idealistic. Catherine, I just felt sorry for and wished she would grow a backbone. And Hugh! I have no idea why anyone liked Hugh. He was controlling, possessive, self-righteous, arrogant, dismissive, condescending, and filled with disgust. There is one scene in particular (that I won't describe so as to not give away spoilers) where he is such a hateful asshole that I immediately disliked every other character just because they overlooked Hugh's behaviour and attitudes. Even after he did something that I would have found unforgivable, it was everyone else's primary desire to make him feel better and keep him a part of the family. But they were trying to build a strong family, and for that, I have to give this movie credit ... or at least say that it's a poly-ish movie. Cyril and Fiona were not the typical movie couple, where the guy wants some hot chick & talks his wife into it. They both seemed equally enamored of the other couple & welcomed them and their children into their home. Cyril in particular tried very hard to reach out to the children and soothe the oldest, who noticed something going on and seemed resentful. Cyril and Fiona both did everything in their power to help Catherine during her own time of emotional crisis without putting their own relationship above everything else. So, I'd recommend this movie if dramas are your thing and you want to see a poly movie that doesn't end with polyamory destroying everyone's lives and, in fact, the polyamory is beneficial to providing an emotional support structure in difficult times. www.polyishmoviereviews.com

How well does this particular fan recommendation hold up to Joreth's poly critique? Sometimes I think that maybe I'm actually speaking a different language from everyone else, and maybe I have some kind of universal translator or babelfish so that I can't tell, but that the translator is buggy or slightly off in some ways. Because people don't seem to use words in the same way that I do. Even with a dictionary, people use words differently, and I find that I am constantly having semantics arguments because we can't discuss a topic until we are all on the same page about what the words we are using mean. One of those words is polyamory. I'm a pretty big proponent of using the definition of a word that the person who made up the word uses. In some cases, I think the Argument from Authority is a good one. If you invented or coined a term, then you get to decide what it means. This is even more important, to me, the younger the word is. And if the word was invented or coined within the same generation (i.e. roughly 30-ish years) and the coiners are still alive, then there shouldn't be any debate about "living languages" and so forth. So, to me, polyamory is about having or wanting multiple simultaneous romantic relationships in which all parties consent to the arrangement. That means that they all know about it and agree to it willingly, not grudgingly. If you don't say yes, it's not consent. If you are coerced, it's not consent. If someone uses their position of authority over you, it's not consent. If you are not aware of any other options, it's not consent. If you are not allowed the opportunity to back out, it's not consent. And so on. Polyamory is also, to me, more about building intentional families (even if some of those relatives are "extended" relatives) than in experiencing sexual encounters (also explicit in the definition - a word's definition is not necessarily limited solely to it's literal translation, the intent and cultural context of a word is also taken into account). So when someone suggests a movie to me that they claim has polyamory in it, I am now highly dubious about that claim. I have been recommended all manner of cheating and swinging and other non-monogamous movies, but very rarely do I find actual polyamory in these films. Every so often, a cheating movie might make it into my Poly-ish Movie List because I believe from the context of the story that it would be polyamorous if not for the circumstances, like the era or culture, that prevents the characters from openly declaring their relationships that are, nonetheless, loving (like Same Time, Next Year) - I basically feel that the characters are poly but possibly trapped somewhen/somewhere that they can't express it properly. Many times, it's hard for me to really quantify why a particular borderline movie is poly and why this other one isn't. It usually boils down to tone, and a vague sense of "moralizing" that I may or may not get from the storytellers. This was the problem I had with The Unbearable Lightness of Being. I kept getting told that it was a poly movie, but there was just something wrong with its tone. Tomas is a philanderer who seems to be afraid of commitment and keeps his emotional entanglements to a minimum. Basically, he has sex with lots of women a few times and drops them when they start becoming "serious". Except for one woman, Sabina, who basically seems to have the same outlook as Tomas, in that she hightails it outta there as soon as a guy starts getting "serious" about her. They appear to have a mutual respect in addition to their mutual attraction and mutual passion because of their shared interest in not letting anyone get close to them. Ironically, that barrier that they both erect to keep people out is what ties them together. Along comes Tereza, an innocent young girl who manages to, as far as I could tell, guilt her way into Tomas' life. She shows up on his doorstep with no place to stay, and so breaks his rule about kicking every girl out before morning. After a whole bunch of these mornings, he finally ends up marrying her. This is yet another case of a couple who doesn't seem to have anything in common and doesn't seem to like each other very much. At least, the director and/or screenwriter didn't establish their relationship very well. We know what Tomas likes in Tereza - she's female - but we don't really see what brings the two such different characters together. She's young, naive, innocent, apolitical, and extremely jealous and insecure. He's worldly, sophisticated, educated, misogynistic, contemptuous of most people, and a horndog. Other than the fact that their bits fit together, I couldn't understand their relationship at all. Tomas continues to cheat on Tereza throughout their relationship, and every time Tereza catches him at it, she throws a huge fit that borders on emotional blackmail. I think she's probably depressive to the point of suicidal. Not that I'm defending Tomas either - Tereza doesn't consent to an open relationship, so he's cheating. Period. She deserves better. There is only one scene that could even possibly be confused for a pro-poly scene. And I have to say that I didn't even interpret the scene this way until someone else suggested it. I still don't see the scene this way, but I can at least see how someone else might. Tereza suspects Tomas of having an affair with Sabina, who has been introduced to the new Mrs. Tomas as his friend & occasionally socializes with them. So Tereza, who is told to get into photographing naked women if she wants to be taken seriously as a professional photographer, approaches Sabina to be Tereza's first nude model. Sabina, a confident, sexually liberated woman in the '60s, is the only person Tereza knows who might even consider the proposal. So we have a scene where Tereza photographs Sabina, and eventually Sabina (who is also a photographer and artist) talks Tereza into posing nude for her in return. The two women, who have before been very awkward together, gain some sort of comfort and familiarity with each other through this mutual nude photography session. I didn't see how this was poly, really. The argument was made that it was basically two metamours who had finally reached out to each other and were able to get past the jealousy to see each other maybe as how their mutual partner could see them. The reason why I didn't interpret the scene this way is because Tereza had only suspected Sabina as being Tomas' lover (he never confirmed) and neither woman spoke of anything relationship-oriented at all. So maybe they did get past some of their jealousy and learned to see each other as people, and maybe this was a bonding, and even a learning moment for both of them. But it was still cheating and still a secret and Tereza still never approved of Tomas' philandering, and the two women never saw each other again on screen. This movie was not about a poly vee. This was a political commentary on the war in Europe and the Soviet invasion of Czecheslovakia, using the characters as vehicles for the commentary. The movie was brilliantly made, using real footage and photographs from the invasion itself, as chronicled by art students at the university at the time, and staging the characters on the sets to flip back and forth seamlessly between the real archival footage and the movie. This was the first and best comprehensive collection of the record of the invasion ever made. This movie was based on the book by the same name, which is also widely touted as a brilliant piece of literature. It was critically acclaimed, although, like any book-based movie, many were disappointed with the conversion to film. So I recommend this movie if history and foreign films and high-brow media are your thing. I just didn't feel that it was particularly poly.   ***SPOILERS*** Tomas and Tereza eventually settle down when Tereza convinces him to leave the city (and, hence, his ready supply of willing adulterers) and live in the country, and they seem to be happily monogamous for a time. So when a guy who can't remain sexually fidelitous is finally able to only by removing his access to other women, and when the couple is shown as finally happy when said other women are removed from the picture, I have a hard time accepting the badge of "polyamory" or even "poly-ish" that the movie has been given. It comes too close to "open relationships are a train-wreck and everyone is happier when they are monogamous" to me. Sabina does appear to have remained a close friend of Tomas, right up until the end, but even she was removed from his reach, and she had to love him from afar. She also proclaimed herself as "their closest friend", meaning a close friend to both Tomas and Tereza, but "close friend" from across the globe and not having seen or spoken to them in years is really tough for me to stretch into "poly". This is one of the few artsy-foreign films that I didn't dislike for being too artsy & foreign, and I'd like to read the book. I might have liked the movie better if I had just come across it on my own instead of having it recommended to me as a potential poly film, because I watched it through a filter of hopes and expectations of poly content. I will not be including this on the Poly-ish Movie List, but it was an interesting movie and I'm glad I saw it.

Can Spike Lee's inaugural film really be a poly movie as everyone claims?  Joreth watches this groundbreaking movie to find out! There's something about student films and classic French movies that just do not work for me. Maybe it's the penchant for black and white even in a color era, or maybe it's the frequent complete lack of musical score or soundtrack, or maybe it's the excruciatingly slow pace and shitty acting, or maybe it's all those years I spent as a film student, forced to watch the painfully "artistic" films by my peers and dragged to pretentious indie art houses to see confusing avant garde movies. I don't know, whatever it is, they're just not my cuppa tea. And Spike Lee's debut movie fits squarely in the middle of that je ne sais quoi that makes my eyes glaze over. But you might have different tastes. She's Gotta Have It is another Netflix recommendation that I was expecting to be misleading at best. Plus, the black community, at least as it's portrayed in pop media, has never been sympathetic towards multiple partnerships, especially if it's the woman with the multiple partners. Nola is in love with 3 very different men. At first I thought it would be another cheating movie where the girl would eventually find The One (who, of course, was not one of the guys she was fucking, because sex is dirty, or something). But then I discovered that she was honest about her "friends", as she calls them, so I thought it was more like Cafe Au Lait, complete with detestable characters who didn't actually seem to like each other. It did feel a lot like a Brooklyn version of that movie - none of the guys liked each other, I didn't like any of them, and no one had any redeeming features to make me understand why she liked them or why they liked her. I kept waiting for her to get pregnant so they could have a Dysfunctionally Ever After ending. But then I noticed something. I noticed that the arguments the guys used to try and convince Nola to be monogamous were the exact same shit I got over the years from cowboys. When you're not monogamous living in a monogamous world, and you don't know anyone else like you to date and can only draw from the mono pool, this movie is exactly what you might get. I'm having trouble categorizing this one. On the one hand, she's honest about her multiple partners and claims to love them. On the other hand, they hate each other and are all competing to be "the winner" - the sole object for her affection. On yet another hand, this is very much what it feels like for some of us to be poly (or something not monogamous) without a community or support or understanding from anyone since no one else is like us. On the final hand, it was yet another movie with characters who didn't really like their dating partners. I think I want to include this on the Poly-ish Movie List because I think a lot of polys go through similar arguments before they find a community, and I think it's a valid part of the broader story of what it's like to be poly. But this was not a story of a poly relationship. If anything, it was the story of a poly-ish woman stuck in a mono world.

Polyamory in the wild?  Can a TV show that isn't about polyamory at all really have an episode with polyamorous characters in an open marriage and treat the subject well?  Joreth reviews an episode of The Mentalist to find out!

Can a web series about a poly triad really be about polyamory?  Yeah, it probably is.  Joreth reviews the show Family, a creative endeavor by Teresa Greenan, a polyamorous filmmaker based out of Portland, OR.

Ah, French ... the culture of love!  Where "alternative" relationship structures are not frowned upon and the people understand the power of passion!  Or do they?  Joreth reviews a movie filmed in the Swingin' '60s on recommendation from a listener, to see if there is any polyamory or ethical non-monogamy in this film made during a time of exploration and experimentation, or if it will just confirm monogamous tropes.

A priest and a rabbi walk into an airport ... to meet their childhood best friend, a tomboy who has grown up into a beautiful, intelligent, independent, CEO.  As she visits her hometown and her two best friends, the men struggle with their growing romantic feelings for the same woman.  Could this really be a tale of polyamory, snuck into mainstream cinema?  Joreth reviews this Ben Stiller film to see if a polyamorous MFM vee could really make it onto the silver screen. I think this is one of those movies that Netflix recommended to me based on adding some other "similar" movie. I wasn't even entirely sure, with a title like that, if the movie was on the list to review for polyamory or for my list of skeptical movies. But with the happy surprise of the last movie I reviewed (A Strange Affair), I was actually kind of hopeful about this one. It was the story of two young men who were best friends as kids, growing up to become a Jewish rabbi and a Catholic priest, and the tomboy who was also their best childhood friend coming back into town as a successful, beautiful, corporate CEO. Because it had big names in it, the movie was most likely to be not-poly, but the setup had some potential. Unfortunately, it flopped. Not that the movie wasn't good (that's debatable, based on whether you like romantic comedies and movies that involve secrets), but it wasn't poly at all and it should have been. These two men love this woman - she was perfect for them both. But because the rabbi is allowed to have sex (and because he is being pressured to find a wife before he becomes head of his temple, or whatever), he immediately acts on his crush when the priest does not because of his vows of celibacy. So the woman spends about half the movie developing a romantic relationship with the rabbi, but keeping the priest safely in a box labeled "do not touch". And as anyone who spends any time in the world of the Monogamous Mindset knows, when a girl puts a guy in the Friend Box, he's stuck there for life, no matter how strong her feelings for him ... those feelings are just very strong "friend" feelings.* So, anyway, by the time the priest confesses his love and he has just about talked himself into leaving the priesthood for her, she is already thoroughly immersed in her relationship with the rabbi and totally oblivious to the priest's growing attraction to her. So the priest has to swallow his embarassment and go back to thinking of her like a sister. Now, you might be able to put this movie in the poly analogues category, because the three of them remain a strong group throughout the whole movie. The priest somehow manages to only be angry at having their relationship hidden from him, but he doesn't seem to feel any major jealousy. Well, there is the one fight where he gets drunk and yells at the rabbi that the rabbi stole his girlfriend, but mostly the priest seems to recover from his one- or two-night bender and move right into compersion for his two best friends, only nursing the hurt feelings of being lied to (which, frankly, I can totally understand). ****SPOILER ALERT****   The movie ends happily ... for a monogamous movie ... with the rabbi and the woman back together and the priest happy for them both and everyone is one big happy (monogamous & platonic) family. So it might fall under the category of poly analogues, where the only difference between them and us is that the woman would be sleeping with the priest too if it was us. But the reason why I didn't like this movie is because I get upset at plots that put a convenient excuse in the way, basically cockblocking a poly relationship from happening. Usually, it's death, but in this case, it was vows of celibacy. See, in the world of the Monogamous Mindset, a person can only romantically love two people at the same time if one of them is dead. It is only acceptable for a woman to say she loves two men if she is referring to her dead husband and her new husband, whom she met a safe time-distance after the death of her first husband of course. So most Monogamous Mindset movies conveniently kill someone off to allow the person torn in the middle the freedom to love them both and to force her to make a choice (*ahem*Pearl Harbor*ahem*). In this case, the priest's celibacy interfered with his ability to pursue a relationship with the love interest and his religious faith gave him something to hold onto after he was rejected and allowed him to remain in the picture. Whereas with most romcom love triangles, when the love interest rejects one guy for another, he just disappears somehow (maybe he's a bad guy & goes to jail, or maybe he's a good guy and walks away voluntarily, whatever). But because this is a Catholic priest, he is safe enough to keep in the picture and safe enough for both the rabbi and the woman to continue loving because his faith and his vows make him a non-threat. In any other movie where he isn't a priest, the "other love" has to disappear because you can't have the "other love" hanging around your new wife. Or something. This kind of thing can often be more tone than something specific. It's not very easy to quantify why some movies that end with a dyad still make it to the poly list but other movies don't. It's something in the way the actors and the director interpreted the lines that affect the tone of the movie. These movies never have a bit of dialog where someone says "Whew! It's a good thing my husband was killed in that war, so I can safely love you now without falling out of love with him or having to choose!" So, in Strange Affair, where one partner had a serious illness that sort of forced the characters into a position where a love triangle could happen, the tone of that movie didn't strike me as negative. It suggested, to me, that these are people who live in a world where nonmonogamy was Just Not Done, so they needed some kind of extraordinary circumstances to leave them open to the possibility, to give them the impetus to even consider something outside of the norm. But this movie just didn't have that same feeling. The way it was portrayed suggested more of a situation where three people happened to love each other in a world where they shouldn't, so they wrote the circumstances in such a way as to give them a monogamously acceptable way to do that. Basically, they had to neuter one of the characters in order to keep him in the picture, which isn't the same as killing him off, but it belies a tone sprung from the same well. I would love to see this movie re-written, where the priest and the rabbi are forced to re-evaluate their religious faiths in light of their growing love and attraction for the same woman (of no particular faith); where the priest and the rabbi both decide that their mutual love for this woman is incompatible with what they have been taught about religion, which then makes them question everything else about religion, and which leads them to the realization that they have always been a happy threesome so there is no reason why they can't continue to be a happy threesome in a much fuller sense of the word. I'd love to see this movie where the woman does not put one of her best friends into the Friend Box, but allows her love for them both to flourish, and where she comes to the same realization - that they have always worked best as the Three Musketeers, and breaking off into a dyad + 1 would change the dynamic in an unacceptable way. Unfortunately, that was not the movie I watched. --------------------- *The Monogamous Mindset is a particular set of beliefs and viewpoints about monogamy that create the society in which I live. It does not mean that everyone who happens to be monogamous has this mindset, nor does it imply that people who are non-monogamous are automatically free of this mindset. The Monogamous Mindset is a set of rules and morés that dictate how relationships ought to be, many of which are inherently contradictory, selfish, and harmful. One such set of contradictory Monogamous Mindset rules is the rule that you are supposed to marry your best friend, but you're not allowed to be involved with your friends because that would ruin the friendship. And that's the one I'm referencing here. There is this weird rule out there that people, women especially, can't get romantically involved with their appropriately-gendered friends because that would automatically (or could most likely) ruin the friendship. Men's magazine articles and lonely guys online like to lament about the dreaded F word - "friend". Being called a friend is like the worst thing a woman can do to a man who is interested in her, because it means he will never have a chance. Of course *I* know this doesn't always happen and that there are exceptions, which is why I speak so condescendingly of the Monogamous Mindset and of this rule in particular, so please don't leave a comment like "but I married my best friend and it's the best relationship I've ever had!" I know, that's what makes this rule so irritating. But it's out there, and it permeates our society, and is quite possibly responsible for a significant amount of unnecessary heartache.

Can a made-for-tv movie about a broken marriage have polyamorous content in it?  Joreth reviews this Judith Light film to see if there is any polyamory in a low-budget, '80s flick. The Netflix summary reads: "Judith Light stars in this sexy made-for-TV drama about a married woman who discovers that her husband of 23 years has been unfaithful. Just as she finds passionate love in another man's arms and prepares to divorce her husband, he suddenly has a stroke and becomes physically incapacitated. Will she move back in with her husband and take care of him ... even though she may risk losing her new lover?" When a movie arrives in my mailbox, I don't always remember if I put it in my queue because it was on a poly list somewhere or because Netflix recommended it to me as "similar" to the poly movies I just added to my queue. Judging by the summary, I assumed this was one of the latter types of "poly" movies. I sat down with this movie with the lowest of expectations, prepared to hate it for yet another cheating drama that would probably end with some kind of choice being made, and possibly even a choice I would think was toxic or foolish. I couldn't have been more wrong. And I love it when I'm wrong about things like this. First of all, the Netflix summary gets the order of events wrong, which is partially why I had such low expectations. Lisa is married to Eric, a charismatic, charming film maker who hasn't made a film in 7 years and spends his time gambling with the money he steals from his wife and fucking his secretary. We are introduced to this plot by meeting a loan shark's thug who has come to intimidate Lisa at work in the very first scene. Eric is the kind of guy I loathe - an idealistic dreamer who has absolutely no connection to reality and thinks his charm entitles him to break the rules and treat everyone around him like shit. But he's charming, and a lot of women find themselves in love with charming users like this. And once you're in love, it becomes all too easy to overlook, to excuse, and to rationalize, until you are trapped - held hostage by your own emotions. But Lisa finds her spine and prepares to leave now that both of her children are out of the house and in college. Except that the day she actually gets the courage to leave, she gets a call from her daughter saying that her husband has had a stroke. So Lisa returns home to care for her husband. What I really like about how the writer treated this situation is that he made no secret of the resentment that Lisa feels at being trapped again, by her love and her responsibility to Eric. She moves back home to care for him, but she is also excrutiatingly honest when she tells him that their marriage is over and she is only there because her conscience won't let her abandon a dying man who is also the father of her children. I found this to be a bold, courageous choice in storytelling because it is not socially acceptable to be "mean" to someone who is sick and/or dying. Being struck with a crippling illness doesn't erase that person's past as a jerk, and it doesn't necessarily change them, automatically, into a nice person either. It might be inconvenient timing, but leaving someone or disliking someone who has had a near-fatal incident doesn't necessarily make that person a bad person. And that's a really bitter pill for some people to swallow. The rest of the movie follows Lisa as she attempts to recover from the financial ruin her husband has put her into with his gambling while now being financially responsible for his medical care, and two people with a painful history learning to live together with a debilitating and life-threatening illness. Now for the poly stuff. Enter Art, the mechanic who takes pity on Lisa when her car breaks down and she tries to work out a payment plan because she can't afford to pay the bill. Art starts doing stuff around the house for her to make her life a little easier. And in the process, he falls in love. I won't give away the ending or the details, but what transpires is a very touching story of a woman who learns to fall back in love with her husband while discovering love with someone new. And, even more touching is the story of a man who loves his wife but who is ultimately selfish and is then forced to re-evaluate his priorities and deal with the fact that she loves another man. This is also the very touching story of a man who falls in love with a married woman, who shows us what true love is - the desire to see another person happy and to facilitate that happiness, whatever it means. If she still loves her husband, then her husband must be kept around and must be honored as the man she loves. I think this is a good example of the kinds of situations that people can relate to - a bridge between the poly and mono worlds. It's not really a poly analogue because she flat out says that she is in love with two men. We see the tension between the metamours, we see the disapproval of the children and the neighbors, we see the resentment of being held back, and the loving amazement when poly works well. It's just a story told within the framework of a situation that non-polys might be able to sympathize with ... a setup that puts a monogamous person in a very difficult position where things are no longer black and white. What do you do when your husband & father of your children is an asshole but you still love him? What do you do when you are trapped in a marriage that is over but love finds your doorstep anyway? What do you do when you are financially strapped and alone and someone offers no-strings-attached help simply because he thinks you could use it? What do you do when you fall in love with someone you are not supposed to love? This was one of those poly-ish type movies - a situation that lives on the fuzzy borders of what is and is not polyamory. But the tone of the movie, the scenes between the metamours, the complexity of emotion, the selfless version of love, all make me feel that this movie fits quite squarely into the polyamory category in spite of any debate over which configurations really "count". I recommend this movie, both for the poly-ish movie list and to watch.

Can a mainstream movie about an "open marriage" really have some polyamory in it?  Joreth reviews the movie Fling, starring Brandon Routh, Steve Sandvoss, and Courtney Ford, to answer that very question.

Can a movie about a woman charged with bigamy on the day of her 6th wedding really be about polyamory? Joreth reviews this quirky Spanish film that challenges the standard narrative of a man and his harem, and questions everything a conservative judge ever thought he knew about love and relationships.

Sleep With Me promises "raucous laughter" and sexy fun times with sexy Eric Stoltz, Meg Tilly, and Craig Sheffer, but does it deliver? Joreth reviews this "romantic comedy" for polyamory, romance, and comedy.

Rita, Sue, & Bob Too! was hailed as a landmark comedy in the '80s in Britain, and also passed around polyamorous online groups as a poly film.  But is it?  Is it both?  One or the other?  Neither?  Joreth reviews this wildly acclaimed movie for any hint of polyamory, open relationships, or consensual and ethical non-monogamy to see if it lives up to the hype.

Could Alan Rickman possibly have started in a poly movie?!  Joreth reviews this unusual film to see if a happy polyamorous V or triad family can be found among the backstabbing, vicious world of competitive hair styling.

This movie occasionally gets mentioned in discussions of poly movies. But is it? Joreth reviews Sex Monster for traces of an open marriage, triads, or any polyamory.

New(ish) polyamory mockumentary, Lutine, gets Joreth's special coverage to see if it's really polyamorous! Does this French fictional documentary do poly justice, or does it stick with the same old, tired, "opening up" stories and open marriages?

Is the indie film Shortbus really a poly film?  This movie claims to have it all - alternative sexuality, BDSM, polyamory, consensual & ethical non-monogamy, swinging, "free love", and more. 

Can a movie that actually describes itself as a "cautionary tale" make the Polyish Movie List?  Joreth watches Kiss Me Again to see if this couple can open up their marriage to a bisexual women into a happy polyamorous triad, or is it yet another case of bad Unicorn Hunting?

Sex!  BDSM!  Bisexuality!  Comic books!  Joreth checks out what all the hubbub is about the new biopic, Professor Marston & The Wonder Women, in theaters right now!  Here's your chance to check out a polyamorous movie on the big screen.

Is the popular adult film, The Story of O, really a poly movie as so many people claim?  Joreth takes one for the team and watches this erotic film to scour it for polyamory.

Was Amelia Earhart really polyamorous?  Joreth reviews the 2009 movie with Hilary Swank to see what this version of the story has to say about it.

Can a marriage of convenience turn into a happy polyamorous triad?  Joreth reviews the Wedding Banquet about a gay man, his lover, his green-card wife, and his very traditional Chinese parents to answer this question.

Joreth takes another foray into the world of independent, foreign films from the '60s.  From the era of Free Love, can this be a long lost poly movie? Joreth reviews movies for poly or polyamorous content looking for stories of open relationships, open marriage, ethical non-monogamy, triads, quads, vees, networks, polycules, and anything else related to polyamory.

A movie with the number 3 in the title can't be all bad can it?  Joreth reviews Trois, a Netflix recommendation about a unicorn-hunting threesome.   Sardonic use of casual ableist language & possibly sex-negative sex worker language intending to mock the sorts of writers who use "crazy" as a scapegoat and their poor depiction of mental illness as well as their obviously one-dimensional and low opinion of sex work.

Could there be polyamorous content in this classic play-turned-film from 1978?  Joreth reviews one of the more successful screen adaptations of a stage play as a possible polyish movie.

Can Woody Allen handle polyamory?  Joreth reviews Whatever Works for a polyamorous sub-plot of a ménage à trois triad or a "household of three".

Joreth reviews the BBC bio-drama of the turbulent relationship between writer Vita Sackville-West and Violet Keppel and the effect on their families.

Joreth reviews a classic film of exploration starring Darryl Hannah.

The popular, award-winning Mexican film, Y Tu Mama Tambien, often gets a mention in poly movie lists, but is it really?  Joreth reviews it to find out!

Does Netflix' suggestions get it right?  Joreth reviews a movie called My Girlfriend's Boyfriend on the recommendation of a computer algorithm based on prior movies watched.

Joreth reviews the classic movie, Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid with Robert Redford, Paul Newman, and Katharine Ross.  Could there be some polyamory in this Old West legend?

Joreth reviews ... Futurama?  Yes, the feature-length movie A Beast With A Billion Backs was recommended for review for polyamory.

Was Clint Eastwood in a poly movie?  Wait, Clint Eastwood sings?  Joreth reviews the classic film Paint Your Wagon with Clint Eastwood, Lee Marvin, and Jean Seaberg.

Joreth reviews the new web series, Compersion, directed by Jackie J. Stone, with Jammie Patton, Derrick LeMont, and Ka'ramuu Kush.

There's a new TV show out entirely about a triad!  Joreth reviews the first episode of You Me Her.

Joreth reviews Micki & Maude, a story about a bigamist who must keep his wives from meeting each other, which becomes tricky when they're both pregnant.

Joreth reviews Design For Living, a movie about an MFM triad filmed in the 1930s, starring Gary Cooper, Frederic March and Miriam Hopkins.

Joreth finally gets around to reviewing the webseries based on the famous book, The Ethical Slut.

Joreth reviews Sex And Breakfast with Macaulay Culkin, Eliza Dushku, a story of two couples having trouble in their relationships coming together to see if group sex can fix them.

Joreth reviews Hyde Park On Hudson with Bill Murray, Laura Linney, and Olivia Williams.  As Great Britain faces an imminent war with Germany, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his wife, Eleanor, invite the King and Queen of England for a weekend at their home in upstate  New York. But during the first-ever visit of a reigning British monarch to America, international affairs must be juggled with the complexities of FDR’s domestic establishment, as wife, mother, and mistresses all conspire to make the royal trip an unforgettable one.

Joreth reviews Cafe au Lait with Julie Mauduech, Hubert Koundé, and Mathieu Kassovitz.  Lola is pregnant and doesn't know who the father is, while neither man even knew that Lola was seeing someone else.

Joreth reviews the movie My 5 Wives with Rodney Dangerfield, Molly Shannon, & Andrew Dice Clay.  An entrepreneur buys some land in Utah and inherits the prior owner's wives as part of the bargain.

Joreth reviews the movie Head In The Clouds with Charlize Theron, Penelope Cruz, and Stuart Townsend.  A sweeping romantic saga about a triad in Europe and the pressures of war on love.

Joreth reviews the movie Two Girls And A Guy with Robert Downey Jr., Heather Grahm, and Natasha Gregson Wagner.  Two women discover they are both sleeping with the same man and confront him.

Joreth reviews the movie Belle Epoque with Penelope Cruz, where a young, handsome Spanish Civil War deserter seeks refuge with a generous artist and finds himself in the middle of a romantic dilemma when the four beautiful daughters return home to the family nest.

Joreth reviews the movie Her with Joaquin Phoenix and Scarlett Johannson.  A lonely writer develops an unlikely relationship with his newly purchased operating system that's designed to meet his every need.

Joreth reviews the movie Carrington, with Emma Thompson, Jonathan Pryce, and Steven Waddington.  This is the story of real-life painter Dora Carrington, her life-partner Lytton Strachey, and their various loves.

What does "poly-ish" mean and how does a movie make it onto the "approved" list versus a movie that doesn't?  This episode will cover the entire criteria that Joreth uses to evaluate movies for poly content for all future movie review episodes, including:  What makes a movie polyamorous?  What makes it just an "open relationship"?  What's the difference between a poly movie and a poly-ish movie?  Does cheating count?  What if it's a triad?  Or a quad?  Or a documentary?  Does it have to be an open marriage?  How open and honest does it have to be to count?  And more.