Four young people decide to abandon the pressure of urban life and retreat to an isolated rural cottage to live free of the oppressive modern world. With leisurely countryside exploration during the day, creative entertainment in the evening and scheduled partner swapping at night, there seems enough to keep their idyllic existence going for as long as they wish.
Winner of the Best British Feature Film at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, Hide and Seek takes a look at a polyamorous relationship through the modern perspective of a younger generation. There is no intent to assert that the quartet’s style of living is in any way superior to the accepted conventions of contemporary modernity; this is just four people choosing to reject the expectations of standard society and seek happiness within an unconventional lifestyle.
A rota is drawn up of which pair will share the master bedroom each night, during which the door is locked from the outside with the agreement that those within are free to indulge in whatever fantasy they desire. The lack of inhibitions and expectations mean the group become increasingly comfortable with one another, and the lives of the four individuals soon develop into a single four-handed relationship.
It’s established from the outset that the girls are just as attracted to each other as they are the guys and vice versa, therefore every couple permutation is treated as equally viable. Rather refreshingly, nudity is shared out equally between genders, with the most provocative shot being one of male masturbation. While in no way the central focus of the film, the sex is nevertheless an important aspect of the story, and is portrayed in a far more realistic manner than standard Hollywood-style love scenes of muted breathless moaning and softly-lit rhythmic undulations. Real sex is hot, noisy, sweaty, inelegant, messy and utterly brilliant, and rather than just repetitive shots of pelvic thrusting, the sex scenes manage to be both explicit and intimate, while remaining a long way from the voyeuristic porn of, say, Nine Songs.
The title is a reference to the activities the group undertake every evening, sometimes sexually charged, such as with nude art modelling or a mock date night, and sometimes fairly innocuous activities like dance performances, a simulated camping expedition or a roleplayed imitation of TV chat show. The point is that they are all essentially adult versions of games groups of kids play together, each other’s company being all they need and where the only limits to what they can do are their own imaginations.
The usual progression of events in similarly themed films assuming they aren’t cult-related or a middle-aged man being “shared by a couple of pretty young things is that while experimenting with living in a non-judgemental sexual utopia can be fun for a while, things inevitably deteriorate and the idealism begins to falls apart, often ending with the patronising and unreasonable message that monogamous heteronormativity is somehow the “correct way of being in a relationship. Although the film does threaten to develop this way a couple of times, the fakeouts are deliberately included to make the point that such a resolution is being actively avoided.
Overall Verdict: A story about non-standard relationships in the modern age, Hide and Seek is an erotic and unfettered statement that love does not necessarily have to be what other people say it is.
Reviewer: Andrew Marshall