SEX TAPE - FINITI IN RETE: CON LE MIGLIORI INTENZIONI DI RIACCENDERE LA PASSIONE DI COPPIA UN PO' SOPITA SUGLI SCOGLI DELLE RESPONSABILITA' FAMILIARI, CAMERON DIAZ TORNA A FARE LA 'CATTIVA MAESTRA', IN COMPAGNIA DI JASON SEGEL

Sex Tape - Finiti in rete è un lungometraggio diretto da Jake Kasdan, nel quale i due protagonisti ossia Jay (Jason Segel) e Annie (Cameron Diaz) sono una coppia che ha basato tutta la loro relazione sul sesso, praticandolo in ogni momento e in qualsiasi luogo. La giovane coppia cresce e decide di sposarsi ed avere figli, passato del tempo si ritrova pienamente coinvolta in una vita dedicata alla famiglia, che non dà più tanto spazio all'attività sessuale. Così per ritrovare la passione assopita, Jay ed Annie decidono di fare qualcosa di trasgressivo e su idea di quest'ultima provano a girare un film porno con l'Ipad. Il filmato però per un errore di Jay viene condiviso finendo nel cloud e pertanto viene reso visibile su molti supporti digitali. Così inizia l'avventura di Jay ed Annie per cercare di non far diffondere il loro filmato e cancellarlo dalla rete.

Attraverso un

linguaggio moderno dai tratti volgari si delinea il rapporto tra Jay ed Annie che è fatto di parole forti e sessualmente esplicite, che pian piano diventano meno volgari e sessualmente più comiche, fattore che si rivela efficace anche nell'interpretazione dei due protagonisti, offrendo momenti veramente efficaci e satirici. Oltre alla coppia Jay ed Annie, i personaggi più interessanti di tutta la narrazione sono la coppia di amici Robby e Tess (Rob Corddry e Ellie Kemper), che diventano complici nella ricerca di altri dispositivi collegati che possano avere nella loro memoria il file del filmato porno di Jay ed Annie. Un'interpretazione veramente lodevole è quella di Robe Lowe nei panni di Hank Rosenbaum, CEO dell’azienda in cui lavora Annie, che ne deve decidere la sorte lavorativa, dopo averle affidato un incarico molto importante.

La commedia si svolge con un ritmo molto serrato grazie anche ad un montaggio ritmico che rende le

scene, anche quelle di sesso, leggere e non troppo erotiche, le scene di nudo dei protagonisti sono sempre celate in pieno stile commedia senza la presenza di nudità frontali od esplicite. Il regista afferma di aver girato personalmente la maggior parte del video porno, che i due protagonisti realizzano, utilizzando una macchina a spalla invece di usare una troupe di cento persone, in modo che il film sembrasse girato artigianalmente. La squadra Kasdan, Segel e Diaz si ritrova per la seconda volta coinvolta nella realizzazione di un film comico e ritmicamente efficace dopo Bad Teacher- Una cattiva maestra, dove Jason Segel e Cameron Diaz interpretavano una coppia
particolarmente fuori dai canoni. Si nota sin dal prime battute del film una straordinaria sinergia tra i due attori protagonisti che confermano a loro volta di essersi sentiti disinvolti anche nelle scene di nudo, avendo davanti a loro una controparte perfetta sia nel carattere

che nel ritmo interpretativo.

Il film e la sua tematica vuole in modo contemporaneo illustrare il rapporto tra le età, la sessualità, la tecnologia, la modernità ma nello stesso tempo far riflettere sul rapporto di coppia, sulle difficoltà del matrimonio e della vita familiare con alcune sfumature contornate dalla sfera sessuale. Girato in digitale con Arri Alexa XT nella città di Boston anche se il film è ambientato a Los Angeles, si presenta come una commedia ironica e
spassosa adatta sia ad un pubblico giovanile che adulto.

CAMERON DIAZ AND JASON SEGEL RETEAM WITH 'BAD TEACHER' HELMER JAKE KASDAN IN THIS SURPRISINGLY BLAND COMEDY.

Who should be more embarrassed: the husband and wife who accidentally release a homemade porn video in “Sex Tape,” or the studio that’s willfully distributing “Sex Tape”? Basically an extended marital-therapy session wrapped in an iPad commercial, this surprisingly bland Cameron Diaz-Jason Segel vehicle has a marketably racy premise but takes it in a stilted, unfunny direction that leaves both actors flailing about, sort of like the translucent red double-ended dildo that gets whipped out in an especially sad fit of comic desperation. Interesting mainly as a sign of how thoroughly smut, Apple products and smut viewable on Apple products have seeped into contemporary life, Sony’s July 18 release might attract audiences starved for a decent R-rated summer comedy following recent hits “Neighbors” and “22 Jump Street,” but seems unlikely to show anywhere

near the same box office stamina.

In one of the more unorthodox post-Muppets-movie career moves in Hollywood history, regular writing partners Segel and Nicholas Stoller (teaming with scribe Kate Angelo, who is credited with the story) have attempted a moderately risque adult laffer that retains some of the sweetness and spark of their Judd Apatow-produced collaborations, such as “The Five-Year Engagement” and “Forgetting Sarah Marshall.” As directed by Jake Kasdan, “Sex Tape” also bears a superficial resemblance to the Stoller-helmed “Neighbors,” a much sharper comedy about a couple seeking naughty relief from their boring domestic routine.

It wasn’t always thus for Annie (Diaz) and Jay (Segel), who, as seen in a belabored opening montage, used to be dynamite in the sack, doing the deed whenever and wherever they liked — in the bedroom, the shower, the car, public parks, Mexican restaurants, etc. Ten years later, they’re married with two children (Sebastian Hedges

Thomas, Giselle Eisenberg), a two-story West L.A. home and busy professional lives — she’s a mommy blogger, he works in radio — leaving them little time for intimacy. When they do finally get an evening all to themselves, dropping the kids off with Grandma (a sweet Nancy Lenehan), they have an unusually hard time getting into the mood, leading Annie to suggest they spice things up by starring in their own X-rated video.

Shot on Jay’s new iPad — which, as the characters pause to advertise more than once, comes equipped with an ultra-high-def camera — the resulting three-hour amateur epic shows (or rather, suggests) Annie and Jay demonstrating every position in their well-thumbed copy of “The Joy of Sex.” But rather than listening to Annie and immediately deleting the video afterward, Jay accidentally uploads it to the cloud — where, thanks to an unpredictable new syncing app, it’s automatically downloaded

onto several iPads he gave to friends and family as gifts. And so, with the help of their friends Robby (Rob Corddry) and Tess (Ellie Kemper), whose own prurient interest in the video’s contents becomes something of a running gag, Annie and Jay must track down the tainted tablets and erase the evidence before anyone else views it — especially Hank Rosenbaum (Rob Lowe), the family-values-minded CEO whose company is considering acquiring Annie’s blog.

Despite the apparent unlikelihood of such a gaffe actually happening, on paper it sounds like fairly relevant material for our sex-obsessed, technologically paranoid digital era — a comedy geared toward an audience presumably familiar with the ins and outs of Internet porn, and well aware that their most sensitive personal data could be one stray click away from public exposure. In the execution, however, “Sex Tape” is an unaccountable drag — strained, toothless and far too tame

to achieve the sort of outrageous, raunchy-titillating effect it’s aiming for. This is, in effect, an R-rated movie with a coy PG-13 sensibility, which can be chalked up in part to the fairly inexplicit sex scenes — a few moments of self-consciously casual rear nudity aside, there’s nothing here to shock those who saw the much edgier “Zack and Miri Make a Porno” or Segel’s full-frontal displays in “Forgetting Sarah Marshall.” But that disinterest in pushing the visual envelope matters far less than the movie’s failure to fully exploit the comedic or dramatic potential of its material.

Rather than, say, forcing the two leads to confront the horrifying, humiliating consequences of their decision, the script sends them on an inane, all-night mission to keep the video from going viral, during which they are beset by attack dogs, pre-adolescent sociopaths and surprisingly benign porn-world denizens. (As played by an unbilled actor in

an amusing cameo, the owner of YouPorn turns out to be, whaddya know, a pretty sweet guy.) When it’s not stuck in farce mode, the movie is a formulaic reconciliation drama in which Annie and Jay must reaffirm their love and address the underlying intimacy issues that led them to make a sex tape in the first place. Diaz and Segel, who made such a pleasingly disreputable pair in Kasdan’s underrated “Bad Teacher,” are nice enough company as always. But in the absence of any real characters to play, they seem weirdly detached from every word and gesture, like half-hearted improv artists trying to wring a few decent sketches from the words “sex tape.”

The movie’s lengthy comic centerpiece finds Annie and Jay dropping by Hank’s Brentwood mansion, and if anyone here deserves a prize for being a good sport, it’s surely Lowe, whose entire performance is a not-so-veiled reference to

the famous leaked video that almost derailed his career in the late ’80s. His tongue planted perhaps a bit too firmly in cheek, Lowe is all smiles and positive energy in the role of a straight-laced, cardigan-wearing family man who, in his downtime, likes to listen to Slayer and snort lines of cocaine. Jabbing at everything from the actor’s past substance abuse to the infamous Snow White Oscars debacle, it’s a mightily self-deprecating turn — and if it’s not exactly a laugh riot, it affords one of the few moments in “Sex Tape” where you sense that someone onscreen is actually having a good time.