"There are enough low points in Afternoon Delight to make you wonder what kind of film it wanted to be"

Following on from its premiere at Sundance earlier this year, Afternoon Delight, the debut feature of writer-director Jill Soloway, is showing at this year's London Film Festival. Soloway has a good pedigree, having written for TV shows such as Six Feet Under, and should be anticipating a good reception after picking up the Directing Award at Sundance. Perennial comedy bit part player Kathryn Hahn (Step Brothers, We're The Millers) will be hoping that her first lead role will lead to bigger and better things.

Despite its seemingly stable appearance (nice house, young child, lovely dog) Rachel's (Hahan) life leaves a lot to be desired. She's been out of work for too long, comfortably living as a stay-at-home mum, her therapist (Jane Lynch) seems more preoccupied with her own life than her patients', and she hasn't had sex with her husband (Josh Radnor) for six months. In an attempt to spice up their marriage, the couple take an ironic trip to a strip club where they meet seductive stripper McKenna (Juno Temple). An unlikely bond forms when Rachel, confused by her emotions, seeks out McKenna and in an attempt to protect her, invites the stripper to stay in the family home.

You don't need a lot of life experience to know that inviting a stripper (who later turns out to dabble in prostitution) into your home is a bad idea, but Rachel seems to be lacking it in spades. Through the course of the film she makes a number of bizarre decisions that lead to her life crumbling around her. If this were an out-and-out comedy these moves wouldn't feel out of place but there are times in the film where the jokes are incredibly thin on the ground. At one point, a drunken Rachel embarrasses herself and deeply offends her friends in a scene reminiscent of a late moment in Bridesmaids. In Bridesmaids this works because the whole film is light-hearted enough and it provides a necessary lull in the comedy before the denouement, here it just comes across as pitiful and sad.

There are enough low points in Afternoon Delight to make you wonder what kind of film it wanted to be. The few laughs here and there make it a fairly enjoyable watch but the jokes are few and far between. For large portions the film isn't even trying to be funny which wouldn't be a problem if the drama was well balanced. Often the drama is too hard-hitting for a comedy but the light, humorous setting is too far removed from reality to work as a drama. In attempting to strike a fine line between comedy and tragedy, Afternoon Delight ends up as a crude mishmash of both which is, at times, enjoyable but ultimately unrewarding.