Like an old married throuple

Sean Garrity, Jonas Chernick and Emily Hampshire have been doing it together for a long time.

Making romantic comedies, that is.

In 2012, the trio collaborated on the award-winning My Awkward Sexual Adventure, scripted by Chernick, an ex-Winnipegger, and directed by Garrity, who still calls the city home. That film centred on a sad-sack accountant (Chernick) who attempts to revive his sagging relationship with the guidance of an exotic dancer, played by Hampshire in a role that preceded her breakout as Stevie Budd on CBC’s Schitt’s Creek.

That film was a modest hit, and led producers to ask Garrity and Chernick to squeeze out another. Quickly, Chernick, who has starred in six of Garrity’s nine feature films, started writing a script that became The End of Sex, in theatres now.

But that was 10 years and four movies ago, says Garrity, goateed and giddy during a recent Zoom call. It’s not that their passion project disappeared, they just got busy. They had growing families, they had other things going on: the next sex comedy had to wait.

“We let that idea go away until the Toronto production company Vortex got a hold of us (a year ago),” he says. After that, he and Chernick delved into their files of abandoned ideas and came across The End of Sex, which originally centred on a couple in their 20s dealing with lagging intimacy.

“When Jonas first sent me the script, I was like, ‘Yeah, but who cares about those two? If they’re not happy together, they should just break up,’” says Garrity.

So they updated it to focus on a couple in their 40s who attempt to salvage their intimate lives while their kids are away for a week at winter camp, pulling out a dusty package of condoms and giving sex the old college try.

(Free Press columnist Jen Zoratti recently gave the film, now playing at Scotiabank Theatre in Winnipeg, a 3.5-star review, calling it “bright and tight” with a snappy script.)

Both Garrity and Chernick have spent a good deal of their careers exploring the ever-changing geometry of sex and relationships through the lens of independent, romantic comedies.

Their first collaboration, Garrity’s feature debut Inertia, featured Chernick as one point in a romantic rhombus of four Winnipeggers, each in love with someone who isn’t in love with them.

“The première date at TIFF was Sept. 12, 2001,” says Garrity. An interesting time to lose your film-festival virginity.

“Everything had to be talked about in the context of (the 9/11 terrorist attacks). ‘Given what’s going on in the world, how do you justify making a romantic comedy?’” he recalls.

The sombre mood didn’t ruin everything: the film won the prize for best Canadian first feature.

In movie criticism, there is always talk of the rom-com being dead. Garrity and Chernick — who has starred in two movies with the word “orgy” in the title — clearly disagree. “I believe art in general, and certainly my films, takes the chaos of existence, picks out some pieces, and arranges them in a certain order to give some meaning to what we’re all trying to live through,” Garrity says.

Showing The End of Sex theatrically was important to the director, whose last film, 2019’s Winnipeg-set I Propose We Never See Each Other Again After Tonight, enjoyed a lengthy cinematic run.

The latest movie is showing on more than 200 screens in Canada and the U.S. (the film even scored a review in the New York Times); in an era of sequel and prequel domination, that’s no small feat for a relatively small rom-com.

“I would quote the great Canadian screenwriter Elan Mastai, who says that every film is a rom-com,” says Garrity. Even The Avengers has elements of the genre, he adds.

But what many films lack that The End of Sex doesn’t is a frank discussion of sexuality, which people — and the films they make — are often too bashful to treat with seriousness and humour at the same time.

“With this movie, it’s really interesting to watch the audience giggle uncomfortably at the beginning,” says Garrity.

But soon they realize they’re not the only ones giggling, he adds. “There’s something really communal about that experience when you’re talking about something so intimate, and embarrassing, for so many people. I think that’s really important.”

Even though The End of Sex is Garrity’s third film with Hampshire and Chernick playing a couple (they also made 2015’s Borealis), he says the creative relationship hasn’t fizzled.

“It’s our third time at bat,” he says. “So a lot of the politeness and trying not to hurt each other’s feelings is gone. It allows us to get to work quickly and get to the heart of it…

“I’m familiar with what Emily and Jonas bring, and they’re familiar with what they can get from me as a director. It’s a continuation of what we started. All relationships grow. I feel like when we’re finished a film, we pick up from where we left off the last time.”

It’s kind of like riding a bike on the first day the snow melts, or getting under the covers after a long hiatus.

Asked if indie filmmaking is like having sex as a married person, Garrity says, “Well, this is my ninth independent movie, so certainly the thrill of everything being magical is gone. Now, it’s more about having the security of knowing what it is that we’re doing and why we’re doing it.”

Hopefully, in both cases, the reason is love and respect, and everyone involved enjoys it.

“By the time you’re making film No. 9, you know what you’re doing, and if people don’t think it’s funny, you can say, ‘Don’t worry. It will be. Let’s fix it in the editing room. I have a vision for it.’”

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