Nate meets Jonny (Darren Bransford), a downstairs
neighbor who is instantly attracted to Nate. Jonny asks Nate what his type is.
Nate replies, “I don’t know.” An honest response, as Nate is clearly not
quite sure about who he is in that area just yet. Nate is also unsure about his
voice. He wants to pursue a career as a singer/songwriter, but hasn’t yet
performed in public, and even as Jonny encourages him, he shies away from
performing at an open mike club. This is a young man who hasn’t had time to
search for his own identity, as his focus has been following his mother’s
wishes. Jonny wants Nate to be happy, to look after himself. “You just have
to put yourself first sometimes,” Jonny tells Nate.
His two sisters are in some ways a sharp contrast to
Nate, in as much as they are more outgoing, a bit louder. Much of the film’s
comedy comes from them. Like when Jay says, “I’m going for a shower, ‘cause
I’m really dirty,” her none-too-subtle flirtation with Jonny, who couldn’t
be less interested. For in large part, Three In A Bed is sweet, quiet
film. The film overall has an honest and natural feel to it, and the characters
are quite likeable.
One of the supporting characters that I really like is
Poppy (Kimberly Hart-Simpson), Jay and Sammy’s friend, who has a little crush
on Nate. In one scene, Sammy and Jay tease Nate after he comes home the morning
after sleeping with Jonny (thinking, at that point, that he’s slept with a
woman). Poppy looks genuinely hurt and concerned. You totally feel for her,
especially in a later scene when Jay tells her to leave and Nate tells her she
can stay. It’s a situation we’ve seen before, where she misunderstands his
words as indicating a sexual interest in her, but these two actors really make
it work. And Poppy is heartbreakingly adorable.
There is another girl interested in Nate, and the scene
where she follows him into a bathroom at a club is one of the few things that
does feel contrived and unnatural in this film. And that is what leads to a
little tiff between Nate and Jonny. And Jonny leaving for a job in France also
seems a bit forced. I’d prefer to have the two characters needing to work it
out rather than separating at that point. But for the most part, this film has
a natural feel, and that is due in large part to the capable cast. However, I
would have liked the film to delve a bit deeper into these characters. And I
would have liked a bit more with the record store. It seems that Nate runs the
store, not just works at it, and his apartment is above it, so we wonder if it
was his mother’s shop and he inherited it. Or did he use an inheritance to
purchase it? After all, he seems too young to have worked his way up. Though
that obviously isn’t the film’s focus, I think this information would have
added to the reality of the character and his world.
Special Features
The DVD includes a behind-the-scenes featurette titled 3
In A Bed: B-Roll Footage, which is approximately six minutes of footage
including a little bit with Tamara Higgs (production manager) and Adam Shelton
(director of photography). There are also approximately five and a half minutes
of deleted scenes, including more about Nate’s music, as a scene where he talks
with Jonny about his music and his mother, as well as Jonny’s mother. The DVD
also includes the film’s trailer.
Three In A Bed was released on DVD on March 24,
2015 through TLA Releasing.
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