Swinging With the Finkels, a 2011 British comedy starring Martin Freeman that only received negative reviews and has been long-since forgotten, is now available on Prime Video in the UK. The film follows a couple in a struggling marriage who decide to take up swinging (aka partner-swapping) in an attempt to spice things up.
This one boasts quite an eclectic cast for a smaller British comedy. There’s Freeman, a year before his first The Hobbit film, and Angus Deayton, probably best known as a panel show host but has acted in Nighty Night, Waterloo Road and One Foot in the Grave.
You’ve got American actors Mandy Moore, fresh off the success of Disney’s Tangled, Weekend at Bernie’s star Jonathan Silverman, and the late Jerry Stiller — star of Seinfeld, The King of Queens, and Zoolander (which his son Ben Stiller starred in, directed, and co-wrote).
There’s also Melissa George, known at that point for Home and Away, The Amityville Horror remake, and 30 Days of Night.
Over on Rotten Tomatoes, the film has 19 reviews from critics — and 0% of them were positive.
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The Guardian called it “a dire sex comedy littered with listless gags” and asked readers to “spare a thought for poor Angus Deayton, who blunders into one scene naked from the waist down.
“Spare another for hapless, befuddled Jerry Stiller, who took a wrong turn out of Seinfeld and somehow wound up at the worst party in town.”
We Got This Covered complained about the “one-dimensional” characters and lack of chemistry between the leads, while Slant Magazine slammed the clichéd stereotypes of gay men and the French.
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Both Variety and Total Film magazine stated that Britain doesn’t make very good sex comedies, while Radio Times magazine went one step further, writing: “There should be a law banning British directors from making so-called sex comedies.”
The audience score is a little bit higher, standing at a whopping 20% positive from 500 user ratings.
Swinging With the Finkels is available now with a Prime Video subscription.
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Joe Anderton is a freelance news writer at Digital Spy, having worked there since 2016. In his time, he’s covered a host of live events and interviewed celebrities big and small. A big fan of TV and movies both mainstream and obscure, Joe also enjoys video games and in particular PlayStation. Joe currently does not use Twitter, but he only ever used it to tell people to watch the film Help! I’m a Fish.