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Just when the victim/villain discourse about sleeper smash “Obsession” was finally beginning to die down, along comes “Everybody Wants to Fuck Me” — another story of a young man’s desires getting violently over-satisfied
— to start it all up again. Merging romantic comedy, body horror and gender-war satire as casually as its handsome, outwardly affable protagonist gets women into bed (and then, crucially, out of it), this limber first feature from British writer-director Jonathan Schey is alternately silly, nasty fun for much of its running time, carried by a performance of witty good sportsmanship from Taron Egerton, though it’s occasionally hobbled by sexual politics that are slightly less progressive than it seems to think.
Following a hot-ticket premiere at Toronto — where a queue snaking fully around two city blocks proved the value of that deliciously grabby title — “Everybody Wants to Fuck Me” has all the makings of a viral conversation piece once it gets out into the real world, though its genre bait-and-switch move may divide viewers, as the initial promise of a smart, relatable modern-romance study takes a hard-left turn into supernatural territory, complete with inflamed STI imagery to make David Cronenberg proud. (Hey, depending on who you’re talking to, that’s modern romance too.) But that harder-edged novelty should serve Schey’s film well in a market that’s less accommodating of old-school romcoms: As a debut, it’s especially slick and canny, heavily indebted to recent Scandi relationship comedies in its arch tone and playful style, and Schey could follow it down any number of plausible commercial paths.
It’s the poster for Agnès Varda’s feminist touchstone “Cléo from 5 to 7” on his bedroom wall that immediately raises questions about personable, clean-cut Adam (Egerton), and you can practically see them whirring through the mind of Liv (“How to Have Sex” star Mia McKenna-Bruce, in a too-brief cameo) when she wakes up in his bed one sunny Sunday morning. Great film, sure, but is he actually a fan? He might be: He’s urbane and intelligent, works as an associate in a private London gallery dedicated to showcasing female artists, and carries his things around a blue Mubi tote that will get a guffaw of recognition from any industry-adjacent audience.
But it could as easily be a performative signal, like the books by Ottessa Moshfegh and Edna O’Brien on his shelf or the adorably scruffy, heterochromic dog named Alana (yes, after Haim) that he walks every day in Victoria Park — accessories that advertise to women his sensitivity, his sophistication, his sharing of their interests. We’ve already seen that Adam is a smooth operator in that regard. In the film’s opening scene, he picks up Liv at a club by intervening when another man is pestering her, pretending to be her boyfriend to fend him off; it’s a nice-guy ploy that secures a one-night stand, though she’s baffled by his standoffishness in the cold light of day.
That’s just his routine, however. His WhatApp is a sea of young women similarly seduced and abandoned: The only member of the opposite sex he’ll go out with more than once is his lesbian bestie Emma (Charly Clive), who rolls her eyes at his exploits, but also, as a shacked-up woman with a baby on the way, vicariously lives through them a little. Significantly less forgiving, however, is Sofia (a scintillating Jessica Henwick), the cynical academic type he tries to pick up at the theater, and who calls him out on pretty much all his shit from the get-go, spitting out the script’s most immediately quotable line: “Men don’t actually like women — they just want women to like them.”
Against all odds, she invites Adam back to her place, where her take-control attitude both confuses and excites him, and the night gets blurrier from there. The next morning, she‘s the one who’s ghosted him, and from then on, nothing quite feels right, even though he’s suddenly sending out pheromones that appear to make him absolutely irresistible to women. Even by his promiscuous standards, his body count soars; simple eye contact, it seems, is enough to seal the deal. So why isn’t he having more fun? Why does it feel like he isn’t actually doing the work here? And what’s that purply welted rash forming down in his crotch? Schey deftly builds this uncanny turn of events by degrees, in such a way that we’re initially unsure if Adam is simply delusional, but also isn’t shy of exploring its most extreme possibilities for darkly farcical purposes. Suffice it to say that incest isn’t off the table.
Egerton’s initially cocksure, steadily more frantic performance does much to sell this absurd pivot, lending proceedings a recognizable human factor throughout: We all know men a bit like Adam, who aren’t the worst but are also pretty far from the best, who may not be overtly toxic themselves, but don’t recognize the toxicity inherent in their advantaged social status. “Everybody Wants to Fuck Me” allows us to feel a little sorry for him, while also relishing the spectacle of him being put through the wringer a bit — especially as the film’s grosser horror instincts take over.
It’s just a bit of a shame that Schey’s script winds up advocating for a pretty staid alternative to his behavior in Emma’s thoroughly domesticated monogamy and imminent parenthood: There are safe, fun, equitable ways to, well, be a horny little devil, and this lively, zesty, thoroughly enjoyable comedy could spend a little more time exploring the options and playing the field.
