When two college students, Sam and Thea, meet Coles at a party, their mutual attraction is immediate, leading to a passionate and awkward night together, and the onset of an intensely charged bond. As they continue to push the sexual boundaries of their friendship, however, they are tested by Sam and Coles' incipient romance and Thea's increasing recklessness, until the relationship dissolves amid a cloud of fear, resentment and mistrust. Eight years later they reunite. An animator for a high-profile ad agency, Coles now lives with Claire, his girlfriend of five years. Thea is happily married to Miles, with whom she owns a flourishing restaurant. And Sam has just returned to Manhattan after working in London where she recently broke off her engagement. Yet upon reconnecting, the three are drawn back into the complicated dynamic that defined their relationship from the start and are forced to confront the true meaning of commitment and love.
With its talky and theatricalized depiction of cruelties mutually inflicted by financially comfortable good-looking young white people on each other, XX/XY at times recalls a slightly more full-blooded Neil LaBute movie.
– Geoff Pevere,
Toronto Star,
11 Jul 2003
fresh:
Rarely does a fine movie like this have so awkward a title.
– Ray Conlogue,
Globe and Mail,
11 Jul 2003
fresh:
Ruffalo continues to be one of the most intriguing actors of his generation.
– Jan Stuart,
Newsday,
28 May 2003
rotten:
There's probably a movie in XX/XY, but director Austin Chick doesn't seem to have found it.
– Robert Denerstein,
Denver Rocky Mountain News,
23 May 2003
fresh:
XX/XY expresses and explores this universal yearning without becoming stuck in it. In this and many other respects, few movies are so mature and satisfying.