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Feature

Party girl Angela (Karein Anna Cheung) loves sex, and isn't afraid to show it - after all, she says, a 'slut' is just a woman with the morals of a man. She takes photos of her many conquests to remember them, which if fortunate because when Angela falls pregnant she can track down the last few guys she slept with unprotected, and work out how to steal a DNA sample from each.


The People I’ve Slept With is being touted as a sexy romantic comedy that sits alongside the likes of Knocked Up, There’s a few issues there as it’s not all that sexy, it’s certainly not all that funny and the term ‘romantic’ is pretty loose here too. What The People I’ve Slept With does have is charm and it’s largely thanks to its lead actress Karein Anna Cheung.

Cheung manages to come off as sweet, despite her attitudes towards casual sex, which women in film generally get a rough time about. It helps that the sex scenes are largely depicted as fun and humorous and the people she sleeps with all doofuses, avoiding the darker side of this lifestyle entirely. The sex scenes themselves are about as soft core as they come, so again don’t go into this expecting to be shocked with her leads sexual exploits. The People I’ve Slept Withactually winds up feeling more like mid-afternoon TV drama in its style but given the sexual nature of things, it would get bumped to the middle of the night timeslot or something, which is probably just about a perfect place for this sort of movie actually.


Anyway, the story is predictable, largely cliché (despite the Asian female lead that the making of tries to sell as the unique spin) and it’s just not funny enough. The cast are fun and light with the majority of the laughs coming from Angela’s gay friend Gabriel (Wilson Cruz) and the flashbacks to Angela’s mish mash of conquests and their quirks. The film’s message seems a little all over the place and I’m not entirely sure what it’s trying to say about casual sexual encounters really but with all that said, it was an easy watch that sort of fluttered by. It's stars may very well go on to bigger and brighter things in the future but make no mistake this is bargain bin sort of stuff rather than a glimpse at the next big thing.

Video

This is quite a beige looking flick overall, with a rather bland, typically low budget look to it but it enables the colours to pop a little from time to time. The image is quite soft and edges come with a bit of noise but the film is well lit and modern looking in a sort of late 90s afternoon TV movie sort of way. The handful of darker scenes can get a tad grubby but they still look pretty good with the coloured lighting to brighten the scenes. This is a transfer that doesn’t do anything special and at the same time doesn’t do a lot to criticise either. It’s quite a bog standard DVD presentation really.

Audio

The movie generally has two things going on, talking and soundtrack and in the stereo track they are balanced and effective. The dialogue is clear but there’s a tinny almost camcorder like feel to some of the sound effects. Opening doors, handling of props and ambience within a larger room can feel a bit hollow. There’s a club scene where the music gets a little more pumpy but it’s never a strain on the bass or anything. Once again, this has the audio feel of a TV movie and doesn’t ever get near to sounding like a bigger budget rom-com.

Extras

The making of (05:54) is largely about how the movie is a different sort of female led movie as it’s with an Asian actress and it’s about day-to-day life rather than martial arts or other such Asian stereotypes. The deleted scenes (06:29) give a glimpse into how the movie could have been constructed differently, with the whole thing being a video filmed by Angela to show he unborn child later in life and wrapping up, there’s the trailer (01:56).

Overall

The People I’ve Slept With was cute but hollow. The film is being sold as something fresh and funny and it’s really neither of those but it’s lead actress Karein Anna Cheung that makes this more fun that it probably deserved to be. The disc is bog standard DVD fare in both video and audio departments, the extras are few but probably more than a title this small this requires and overall this one turns out to be a title that could be worth a rent but only after you’ve seen all the other comedies out there.