Afternoon Delight

I really want to believe that this movie was written with a a different ending than it did. It could have been an EPIC movie showcasing the deep levels of competition and even class structure that leads to women not supporting each other. Or better yet it could have been a movie about women defying those odds and becoming truly supportive of each other.As a long time stripper myself, I was hoping for such a film and in the first half I believed I was finally watching that kind of movie.The story centers around Rachel a bored housewife that is unhappy but why? She has everything. A wonderful house in Silver Lake, a couple kids and doting and successful husband, but she's still unhappy. Not unbelievable. It's all a matter of perspective. As a dancer I have met many woman such as her but more so the likes of her overlooked doting husband who isn't getting any at home. Those kinds of men go see strippers, not prostitutes. They want attention, not to cheat. Not Rachel's husband though. He is all kinds of loyal. Rachel and him go to a strip club together with another couple where they meet McKenna, a young and muse like stripper. This scene is so believable and accurate. Rachel's curious mixed with apprehension -adorable!Next Rachel basically stalks McKenna outside of the club in order to make friends. Incredibly creepy and not appropriate. People, if want to say hello to a stripper and become her friend, don't stalk her. Instead, go to her place of business where it is appropriate and safe for her.Rachel and her husband end up giving Mckenna a home and job because they want to be saviors to her. McKenna is not only a stripper but also a sex worker with regular clients. But she is turning a new leaf thanks to Rachel and her husband. She wants a different kind of life. McKenna is kind and loving and great with the kids. Everyone loves her. McKenna also had family members that take advantage of her monetarily and when they call, she needs to make money fast so she makes an appointment with a client. Rachel objects at first but then goes with her because at this point in the movie Rachel still sees the glamour of sex work and is somewhat aroused by the idea. What she finds is the reality. McKenna's client is a nice guy who communicates well, doesn't cause drama, is kind to Rachel as well as McKenna and pays well but he's not glamorous. Far from it. I loved this scene! It was so real.This is when the movie takes a turn for the grossest kind of judgement. Rachel freaks out and wants to fire McKenna b after witnessing McKenna working it sinks in that she has a sex worker as a nanny. Even though McKenna has been a stellar nanny up until this point Rachel now judges what McKenna does professionally as immoral and now fears that others will find out. Or perhaps that she will corrupt her kids? Why? There is room for a lot more conversation on this topic than the movie goes into. She doesn't talk to McKenna face to face about her fears. Instead, Rachel tells her husband to fire her! At this point I realize Rachel is an ANTI hero. Rachel is spoiled and bored and is now playing with HUMAN beings as her toy and when that toy turns her off she is going to get rid of it - NAY - ask her husband to get rid of IT. Rachel knows McKenna (who is only 19!!) has mommy issues and she has happily been like a mother figure until McKenna became too real for her. So now Rachel is going to abandon her and shame her for something that Rachel asked to be a part of. F*^% Rachel! She's a sub par human when it comes to empathy. McKenna has a breakdown and drinks a bunch (she was actively sober til the abandonment from Rachel) and comes on to Rachel's husband - because that's what dirty little sluts do I guess. Groan! How generically stereotypical!!The movie ends with Rachel and her husband having a heart to heart as Rachel had finally become grateful for what she has because a slutty tramp almost ruined it. WTF? Where is McKenna? Are they going to look for her? Shes a teenager who has began drinking to do drama that happened in their home. A home Rachel offered her in hopes to better herself. But really McKenna is way worse off then before she met Rachel. At the beginning McKenna was supporting herself and practicing being sober. Now she is traumatized by bonding to a family including the children. Thinking she had a new life. Did nothing wrong and got abandoned. Now she's homeless and drinking. But who cares about her... a rich spoiled couple are happy in Silver Lake.McKenna is the hero of this story. She is nothing but sweet and kind and attentive to everyone she meets. She sees everyone as a human and gives them love including Rachel, the kids and her John. She's grateful for the little she has. She doesn't lie. Rachel Lies. She doesn't destroy lives. Rachel destroys lives. This story is about a crappy person who has it all meeting and using a great person who has nothing but is willing to give everything. If the movie was simply edited to show the reality of the story, it would be one of the most honest looks at sex workers and how they are really seen and used by a more elite class. It could have been a movie to win awards. Instead it took the slut shaming route. Too bad. Great actresses.

They have a boring marriage, but it's not a marriage as totally negative movie. It might be more about mental issues, and different people from different places having different views and living different lifestyles. A repressed lady with some past intimacy issues oddly stalks a free-spirited stripper (is it for why she says or is she secretly attracted to something within her). Because I'm so tired of the media and many movies these days being sex-negative (sexuality as bad), I wondered in deciding to watch this if it was sex-positive (as in maybe she learns from the stripper to open up and have fun expressing sexuality and maybe comes to like the stripper and her different sensual lifestyle and maybe they have intimacy) or sex-negative (as in Miss save a ho changes the stripper from so-called bad to so-called good to be a melancholy madonna housewife to be similar to her repressive paradigm and strangely say like many movies these days that sex is bad), and it's sort-of neither as it's in a gray area with so much drama, but it could be said it's slightly more towards the sex-positive as the housewife maybe has some more understanding of the stripper and in that it affirms her marriage with her husband and they benefit from the strippers visit with them as shown in the ending scene. The stripper did not get as much out of the visit aside from a few nights rest, and she might think what's with these people. What happens really is not the strippers fault. The stripper is comfortable with sexuality, pro-sex, understanding of sexuality, and easy-going. The housewife is bored, neurotic, and messed up with a lot of mental issues. When it finally seems like she will finally lighten-up during the massage scene, she's so uptight she doesn't enjoy what would be a dream come true for some relaxed people. This is not a comedy. The actors appear to be following the awkward script, that most people will not acknowledge reflects the current reality for many couples everywhere. After all the drama, the uptight housewife thaws and chills out for a few seconds with her husband, and there is a sigh of delight that this uptight drama is over. There is bored uptight housewives and pathetic boring husbands living the school routine, but it's not an against marriage film, as after she is reawakened (slightly, even if for one afternoon) their marriage seems to be improved in the ending. There is a few brief nude (topless) explicit simulated sex scenes not to view with kids, prudes, or parents. Around an hour and 30 minutes is of neurotic messed up housewives and some boring husbands in Afternoon Drama. About 10 minutes of relief is with Jane Lynch and Juno Temple, and if it was not for the few minutes with these two characters then Awkward Drudgery would probably not be worth watching, as they are the only delights in Afternoon Delight.

Kathryn Hahn is great as the bored jewish mum , who has it all apart from time and sex with her husband . After a visit to a strip club which fails to spice up their lives she befriends/ attempts to change the stripper that she has met . Juno Temple is also great as the lost bad girl and there is much wit and exploration about roles prostitute/ mother ; ie good/ bad woman in society and I actually was really loving the film ; until the last 15 minutes when being an American film instead of a French film it all became a typical rom com and I felt insulted . Plus I never got the actor Josh Radnor as the husband , why she didn't just leave him I couldn't understand ?

There's little to delight in this look at the vapid lives of a group of well-heeled thirty-somethings living in an upscale L.A. suburb. They don't seem very happy, but Desperate Housewives they are not — these guys are mellow to the point of soporific. They appear to get no joy from their wealth, neither dressing well nor driving fun cars. The non-working wives occupy their time organizing events such as drives to raise funds for the homeless, but are only interested in the social aspects and in maintaining their established pecking order rather than having any passion for the causes. The men, with well-paid jobs that don't particularly interest them, have expensive toys — musical instruments, surfboards — that don't excite them much either. These people are college grads yet nobody mentions reading a book, watching a movie, or discusses politics, climate change or anything similar; they seem satisfied to be dissatisfied coasting through their mindless, pointless existences. The only exception is the Hahn character who sees the reasons for her discontent as twofold: she hasn't had sex with her husband for 6 moths and she only has one kid while all her friends have two! (And you thought you had problems.) In an adventurous moment she brings home a stripper (Temple) who turns out to be a high-end hooker; ostensibly to help her out and save her from a life of shame, but actually because she has a suppressed fascination for that same life. And that is the wafer-thin story line. It goes nowhere. You wait in vain for some plot to develop. Maybe the hooker seduces the husband? No, the lackluster wimp never even appears tempted. The movie has no story and by the end nobody's attitudes or lives have been changed. Hahn chickens out and Temple, who was a lot happier and having much more fun in her old world than these suburbanites ever could, has no wish to be "saved." Actually the good-natured, happy stripper was the only character in this movie to whom I could relate.So, is it a comedy? I never even chuckled. A social satire? I guess, although satire requires bite and there's nothing here to bite. Apart from when Juno Temple was on screen, this was 95 minutes wasted watching incredibly boring people lead incredibly boring lives.

Great performances from everyone, especially Kathryn Hahn! Well written as well!

exellent

No subtitles, so beware if you're hard of hearing: there is a lot of mumbling and whining in this movie, most of it difficult to hear and simply inaudible in places. A pretty tiresome story anyway: yet more comfortably-off middleclass American women (in therapy of course) whinging about their petty little problems.