I never saw Flick, Fintan Connolly's first feature, but I did notice something odd in the reviews it got. Though the individual critics all had quite different takes on the film, they all – without exception – made note of a particular sex scene in it. Which is somewhat odd, given that sex – the physical act of coitus, if you will – is not a particularly cinematic act in itself? Pornography, now that's a different matter. With pornography (or so, ahem, I am well-informed), cinema just gets in the way of the sex. But as far as sex in the movies goes (as in the movies that a fine upstanding citizen like yourself can rent with bright eyes and a pure Christian heart), there's a finite number of ways you can show people doing the nasty and make it fresh. Of course in a story, it's all about the reasons why people are having sex. Is it as an excuse, a defence, an apology? Or, God forbid, just for the sheer fun of it? Which brings me back to Flick and the sheer astonishment of critics that were seeing people having sex... because they enjoyed having sex. Which apparently (and on this, I am regrettably less well-informed) quite a lot of people do.

As you may guess, Trouble With Sex has some sex in it. And smoking, lots of smoking, which dates it somewhere after the decline of the Celtic Tiger and before the heady days when we realised that non-smokers will defy medical science and live forever. Michelle (Renée Weldon) is a high-powered corporate lawyer, the sort of power-suit-wearing, penthouse-owning lass who knows what she wants out of a relationship and when she wants it. After a drunken break-up with her sleazy boyfriend, she ends up in the small pub run by Conor (Aidan Gillen) and his amiable drunk of a father.

Conor doesn't really want to be a publican and feels the responsibility was foisted upon him following the untimely death of his mother (which of course cut through his plans of college, travel and true love). Michelle and Conor meet, hit it off and eventually get it together, which entails more sex and a good deal more smoking. He wants commitment and she wants... well, she doesn't really seem to know what she wants.

It is the smaller, more intimate moments of their relationship that stick in the mind, particularly around the obligatory trip-to-the-country sequence that all young celluloid lovers seem to indulge in. Owen McPolin's dreamy cinematography gives a snapshot of Dublin whose hazy nightlife seems to exist underwater, while leads Gillen and Weldon invest their familiar characters with crackle and energy.
But there's that phrase again – Familiar Characters – and good Christ do we see a lot of them. Conor is a lonely guy: do we really need to see him being woken every morning by the amorous couple next door? Michelle is a lawyer, but does that really mean she has to work in an extended comedy routine entitled 'The Big Business Sketch', surrounded by people saying things like 'We have to impress these clients or we won't close the Big Deal!' with a straight face?

This story of Boy Meets Girl, Girl Loses Boy, Boy Reconciles With Girl is an old, old, old one and regrettably, Trouble With Sex has nothing new to add to it. There's the sex, I suppose, but all it will do is confirm your deepest suspicions that everybody seems to be having it and not you.

Jamie Hannigan

Trouble With Sex is released on the 6th of May.
Trouble With Sex – Official website