I had such a tough time deciding if I liked this film or not. At first I was all over it, enthused at the prospect of a critical dissection of sexual relationships. But then the character of Susan disappeared and I realized that it really only cares about the male side of the equation and that’s a bummer. Even so, it’s so bold in its treatment of sex, so modern in its analysis, and features so much understated star power that it’s undeniably a film of substance. It’s no masterpiece as it feels abbreviated and incomplete but it is still a film well worth watching.

Jonathan and Sandy are roommates and best friends at Amherst College. Like most college kids their age, they have sex and girls on their minds and constantly talk about it. Of the two, Jonathan is an experienced womanizer who has bedded many girls while Sandy is a virgin. At a college mixer event, they spot an attractive girl, Susan, and agree to have Sandy get the first shot. He hovers nervously near her until she gives him a break by talking to him first. Soon they start dating and Sandy relates every detail of their encounters to Jonathan. When Sandy tries to escalate his relationship with Susan to a physical one, she resists at first but upon realizing just how inexperienced he is, gradually accommodates him. Intrigued, Jonathan contacts Susan behind his friend’s back and very quickly has her in bed with him, pointing out how she has a completely different persona with him than when she is with Sandy. This goes on for some time until Jonathan breaks things off with Susan, accusing her of being indecisive. Eventually after college, Sandy marries Susan being none the wiser, while Jonathan moves on to women after women and continues being Sandy’s best friend.

The film was a lot more interesting when it seemed to be about all three characters. Once they graduate and begin their working lives however, it becomes evident that this is really only Jonathan’s story and his sex addiction, with Sandy merely being his sounding board. That’s very disappointing as Susan’s side of the story is just dropped with no explanation. My best guess is that Susan was actively shopping for a husband and so adjusted her behavior based on the man she was with. It’s a very cynical and somewhat misogynistic take that portrays women as being just as transactional in their approach to romance and sex as men. I’d have preferred a less oblique way of making the point but it must have been a shockingly bold and honest take at the time. The rest of the film seems to support this reading. Sandy’s sex life with Susan soon grows stale and he struggles to find something else. Jonathan shacks up with an older woman with huge breasts who is eager to please him in bed, yet even the perfect sexpot doesn’t hold his interest forever. And every time the men walk away from a relationship, the women get some of their money.

I have mixed feelings about this film, especially since Jonathan is played by Jack Nicholson who is well known for having an exceptionally high sex drive even by Hollywood standards. I really seems like Mike Nichols made this based on inside knowledge. It’s authentic in that it presents an anti-romantic, modern view of sex. But it’s also very far from a normal person’s lifestyle. Jonathan is the one who leads an exciting sex life as he beds woman after woman and even proposes to Sandy about swapping partners in search of fresh experiences. To the film’s credit, it works towards deglamorizing his lifestyle as it portrays him descending to ever more pathetic depths in his pursuit of hedonism. Yet in doing so, it skips by the perspectives of the other characters who are more psychologically interesting to me simply because they are representative of the experience of the average person. The way the film summarizes what happens to Susan, Bobbie and the others in a few lines dropped by Jonathan is so unsatisfying and unfair.

This film pushed the limits of US censorship rules because its frank portrayal of sex was considered offensive. But it only has very mild nudity and there are no real sex scenes whatsoever. Even the partner swapping that Jonathan proposes never happens so it’s positively mild by modern standards. I did enjoy watching all these famous names acting in something as adult as this and Nicholson is phenomenal in expressing so much with his face. Still the promise of this film is greater than what it actually delivers and I wouldn’t rank it that highly.