Mark Reviews Movies: THE DONOR PARTY

The Donor Party, Vertical Entertainment

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Review by Mark Dujsik | March 1, 2023

The premise of The Donor Party is thin and offers little in terms of stakes. A woman, played by Malin Åkerman, wants to have sex with a few guys in one night so that she can get pregnant. If we're talking in base terms, there's absolutely no degree of suspense or concern of this character's ability to pull off this plan, because men are men and, again, we're talking about a woman played by Åkerman.

In reality, this character would probably leave an overwhelming majority of men with any degree of attraction to women in a bit of stupor if she even looked at them in a certain way. The question isn't whether or not these guys would have sex with her Jaclyn. The real question—one that might have made for a pretty funny gag—is if they'd be able to get over the pure shock of such a request. It's surprising how none of these men actually do question or have any doubts about their dumb luck, but then again, men are, once again, men. Maybe that's not a surprise at all.

The real problem for Jaclyn, of course, is that she needs to find a guy who won't ask any questions, won't develop any feelings for her, and is good father material, as in he's kind and thoughtful and considerate and artistic and charming all of the other qualities she could want from a kid—and not that he'd actually be present as a father. Another potential joke, of course, is that any guy who does possess some number of these qualities might have second thoughts about anonymous sex, and while Harp acknowledges that possibility with one of Jaclyn's mating-only partners, he disappears almost as soon as that notion is introduced. A low-brow sex comedy can't be complicated by anything like real human emotions or anything like that.

It can, though, be complicated by an assortment of other issues. Clearly struggling with the fact that the payoff to his setup is pretty much a given, Harp introduces a lot of them, while overly simplifying everything that might have made this story interesting.

Take the plan itself, which arises when Jaclyn literally bumps into her ex-husband, who repeatedly said he had no interest in becoming a father but is now a dad, as well as a dad-in-waiting, to his new pregnant wife. Wanting to be a mother and not wanting to waste any more time on dating, Jaclyn and her two best friends, Molly (Erinn Hayes) and Amandine (Bria Henderson), concoct this on-the-cheap-and-quick scheme for her to become pregnant. The friends will do all of the work picking out potential, unwitting sperm donors, which feels like a missed opportunity for the movie to let our protagonist do, well, anything beyond having sex with these guys.

The backdrop is a birthday party for Molly's husband (played by Rob Corddry). The candidates are MJ (Dan Ahdoot), Tim (Jerry O'Connell), and Mateo (Jeff Torres), although Armin (Ryan Hansen) hangs around Jaclyn just enough that we can suspect an audible almost immediately. MJ makes cardboard cutouts of famous people and finds himself pining for Jaclyn immediately after having sex in the bathroom. Tim is such a self-centered, chauvinistic jerk that Molly seems like less of a friend for suggesting him. Mateo is an actor doing a Jeff Goldblum impersonation—in a joke that at least isn't as off-putting as the one involving why he think having sex with Jaclyn is a charitable act.

It's all about the sex, in scenes that aren't particularly funny, because the gag is repetitive and slight, or sexy, which is mostly the point and adds another level of unfortunate routine to the proceedings. Jaclyn might not have much to do, except to woo guys who are already anticipating what's next, and with their work finished, the friends receive forced and unnecessary subplots. Molly accidentally drinks a glass of spiked wine (The movie tries to add a level of debate to the morality of Jaclyn's plan, which feels especially pointless compared to her friend's idea of drugging one of the guys), and Amandine flirts with Molly's sister-in-law against the wishes of Molly's husband.

Åkerman is naturally charming, of course, in a way that constantly reminds us how unlikely the difficulties of this plot are. It's probably too much to ask for complexity within something like The Donor Party, but this movie doesn't even give us complications that fit into its simple setup.

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