The Overnight movie review & film summary (2015)

It’s a tricky balance to strike, and it’s fraught with potential for some unlikely alliances. Writer/director Patrick Brice completely gets that dynamic—and explores it for deliciously awkward comedy—in “The Overnight.”

Brice’s brisk and beguiling little indie takes you in various directions over the course of a long evening, but not necessarily the ones you might expect. You may think you know where a certain scene is headed—and it doesn’t go there, or it goes there with a slight twist or detour. His film is deft and delicate and exquisitely uncomfortable, but it also offers revelations that are joyful, sad and true.

It helps greatly that Brice has assembled a group of actors who are game for every adventure in Adam Scott, Taylor Schilling, Jason Schwartzman and Judith Godreche. They all get opportunities to shine and flex their muscles, in large and small ways, both as a foursome and in various permutations of paired-off couples.

It’s hard to write about this movie without giving too much away, but here goes …

Scott and Schilling star as Alex and Emily, a married couple in their 30s who’ve just moved with their young son, RJ, from Seattle to a trendy section of Los Angeles. They know no one and they long to make friends—especially Alex, who’s a bit more unmoored than Emily, who has an actual job in L.A.

One morning at the local playground, their son connects quickly with another boy who’s about his age. The boy’s dad (Schwartzman’s Kurt) walks over and greets Alex and Emily with a familiarity that’s simultaneously intriguing and odd. In no time, he’s invited all three of them to a casual pizza night at their house with his wife and son. It’ll be a good chance for the boys to play some more and for the two couples to get to know each other, Kurt says. Relieved at the prospect of making new friends, they say yes, figuring that the worst thing that can happen is sharing a couple glasses of wine with a couple of bores.