The End of Sex

In this comedy, husband Josh (played by the film’s writer, Jonas Chernick) and his wife Emma (Schitt’s Creek’s Emily Hampshire) have an empty house for one week. With their daughters off at a winter-break sleepaway camp, they attempt to recapture the magic of their now-comfortable marriage with increasingly wild developments, kicking off with a less-than-satisfactory marital romp and a run-in with a couple they know who are separating.

With laugh-out-loud moments throughout, The End of Sex has a deadline — which Josh and Emma count down by knocking over one of their seven garden gnomes each day — and progressively real stakes when the couple’s formerly solid union is re-examined with a new lens. Suddenly feeling like people are having sex all around them, the pair’s laser focus on amping up their love lives and trying new things leads to hilarious misfires.

This film reunites director Sean Garrity with the stars, who worked with him on My Awkward Sexual Adventure — which had its world premiere at the Festival in 2012 and was named to TIFF’s Canada’s Top Ten list. Chernick and Hampshire have solid chemistry, and side characters like Josh’s co-worker Kelly (Lily Gao) and Emma’s friend Wendy (Wynonna Earp’s Melanie Scrofano in an extremely funny turn) bring depth to secondary roles that are traditionally two-dimensional. Colin Mochrie also has an incredible cameo that is a must-see.

KELLY BOUTSALIS

Content advisory: sexual language, drug use