WORDS Sarah Lennon Galavan

Afternoon Delight, as those au fait with one hit wonders of the 70s will know, is a twee little ditty about the delights of lunchtime sex. Given the cheesy nature of the song, with its faux-risque subject matter and tongue in cheek lyrics, it’s a  title that seems at odds with the serious undertone of Jill Soloway’s dramedy. This is a film where sex is anything but making “a lot of lovin’ ‘for the sun goes down”.

Rachel (Kathryn Hahn) is living the bourgeoise wet dream. Ensconced within the wealthy Jewish community of Silver Lake, Los Angeles, she has the open plan house, the curly haired  moppet and the seemingly stable emotional relationship with cuddly, app developer husband Jeff (Josh Radnor). However, the boredom of stay-at-home mom-dom and a non-existent sex life have left her achingly unsatisfied. Spurred on by more adventurous friends, Jeff pays for Rachel to get a lap dance from stripper McKenna (Juno Temple) in the hopes of reinvigorating their flailing physical relationship. Driven by a mix of a middle class saviour complex and heavily repressed lust, Rachel becomes borderline obsessed with the sexually confident 22-year-old, inviting her to move into the family home against the wishes of her husband.

Hahn, making a mad dash escape from the supporting character ghetto, gives a strong performance as perpetual square peg Rachel. She knows that her problems, in the grand scheme of things, are trivial. Something she remarks to her self-obsessed psychologist (Jane Lynch), chiding herself for complaining when there are women suffering in Darfur. Despite her evident material comfort, her unhappiness is still understandable. She constantly fails to live up to her own standards through disengagement and disinterest. She is a distant mother and an unwilling member of the cliquey parent’s committee yet does not possess the motivation to return to work. Hahn manages to capture Rachel’s flaws while maintaining an essential likeability to her performance, at times preventing the material from sliding into self-satisfied raunchy humor (this film has a serious case of assuming that women plus bawdy sex references equals funny).

However, the film falls down in its characterisation of pouting nymphet McKenna. Initially, it seems as if Soloway, a former Six Feet Under writer and the prospective showrunner of Amazon pilot Transparent, is about to mount an interesting commentary on changing sexual mores. McKenna isn’t ashamed of being a sex worker (a term which the other female characters bafflingly claim complete ignorance of) and isn’t particularly interested in taking part in Rachel’s Pretty Women-eque rescue fantasies. Significant tension builds between the two women as Rachel vacillates between seeing McKenna as an icon of sexual liberation and as a shameful presence in her home. Yet, while the film wants us to read this as an act of depersonalisation, McKenna is never given enough of a character to warrant such a reaction. While the film hints at a troubled home life, key questions as to her motivations and true feelings for her profession are left unanswered. She is essentially a plot device in perspex platforms, brought in to give Rachel the wake up call she needs and then dropping off the face of the film once she has served her purpose.

While Afternoon Delight wants to say something interesting about sex today, its failure to take risks with regards to Rachel’s sex life and its hasty third-act retreat to heteronormality make it feel dated. This film may pique viewer’s interest by touching on intriguing issues but anyone looking for more than a cursory and detached perspective on modern sexuality will find their expectations as unsatisfied as its protagonist’s libido.