The curious indie dramedy Afternoon Delight may be another on that increasingly long list of films that owe their existence to Bridesmaids' unapologetic embrace of raunchy women, but on a scene-by-scene basis, it bears a more pronounced cable-TV influence: writer-director Jill Soloway has credits on several episodes of Six Feet Under, and its subject matter - a fortysomething woman's attempts to spice up her life - has already provided the backbone or throughline of such shows as Weeds, Nurse Jackie and The Big C. (At one point, Soloway even replicates the underwater swim that provides a symbolic rebirth in the latter show's opening credits.)
The desperate housewife here is Rachel (Kathryn Hahn), a writer who's found her bedroom time with overworked hubby Jeff (Josh Radnor) has never really recovered from childbirth. A catalyst for change of a sort soon presents itself in the lithe form of McKenna (Juno Temple), a lapdancer Rachel befriends after she's thrown out on the streets by her no-good beau - and the two women's relationship comes to be presented as not that much more unlikely than middle-aged women signing up to poledancing lessons for the cardio. The editorial position throughout is broadly openminded: if we must have sexworkers, the film states, better to dialogue with than disavow them - and the script bears plentiful traces of noble, non-judgemental research on why girls like McKenna do what they do, and what they really think about their clients.
This underlying seriousness of purpose slightly shortsells Hahn, a very funny lady (see her voracious saleswoman in 2009's The Goods for evidence) squeezed not entirely comfortably into what may be a Soloway surrogate role - a literal straightwoman who, for all her hang-ups, is still meant to be admirable or relatable on some level. This actress can nail squirming bourgeois embarrassment in the scene where Rachel sees a bit too much of McKenna's handiwork, but here, as elsewhere, you catch the film having a snarky sort of fun at its central character's expense. (In this respect, it isn't so far removed from Weeds, in which the narrative sometimes seemed to be playing out a near-sadomasochistic relationship between creator-punisher Jenji Kohan and Mary-Louise Parker's increasingly guilt-ridden heroine.)
If it's straightforward laughs with sexworkers you want, you may be better off with 2012's For a Good Time, Call...: a film to make you snort popcorn, where Soloway clearly intends it to catch in your craw. This much is apparent from the slurry, blurry, quasi-Cassavetian final half-hour, which charts a collision course as McKenna gets trashed on vodka at Jeff's poker night while Rachel gets sloshed on red wine with her gal pals and starts gossiping about date rape. It's a wrenching turn, and the Bridesmaids crowd seem unlikely to follow, yet it's only as daring as anything Six Feet Under attempted before it: by the time Hahn is confessing to flicking herself off to the rape scene in The Accused - and McKenna is facing a similar threat on the poker table - the viewer will have to decide for themselves whether Afternoon Delight is trading in remarkable levels of honesty (regarding, say, how female desire is too messy to be neatly contained), or simply giving up too much information.
Afternoon Delight opens in selected cinemas from Friday.
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