Sex, lies and turning 40: How Sean Garrity found the heart in a couple's midlife crisis

Cutaways is a personal essay series where filmmakers tell the story of how their film was made. This TIFF 2022 edition by Sean Garrity focuses on his film The End of Sex, which follows a married couple trying to rekindle the magic of their love life.

When Matt was turning 40, he decided to host a giant party. 

Like, the party to end all parties.

He invited his neighbours, but told them that if they chose not to come, he would pay for a hotel suite somewhere for them — because falling asleep in the vicinity of his crazy party would not be possible. 

It was just going to be too damn loud.

For the past 10 years, Matt and his wife had lived in this large house in their affluent suburb, commuting into the city for their office jobs, and driving their two kids to their various team events, summer camps, and birthday parties.

But underneath, they were still the same wild 28-year-olds who had fallen in love when they drifted away from a bar together on a beach in Koh Pha-ngan — stoned out of their heads — and made love under the full moon.

This party would be, in a way, an expression of those true selves.

Matt would throw the party for his inner 28-year-old self that his real 28-year-old self could never have afforded.

They shuffled their kids off to an aunt's place for the weekend, had the event catered by their favourite downtown Thai restaurant, cleared out the living room for mad dancing till the wee hours, and hired a DJ with a sound system that was
really.
really. 
loud.

Free alcohol of all descriptions would flow endlessly from a bar overseen by their favourite bartender on her night off, and they even called in the guy they used to buy weed from — Greg who still lives in an apartment — to give it out freely in a side room off from the dancefloor.

When Matt's mom expressed interest in celebrating his 40th with him, he had to break it to her that his crazy party wasn't really for old people.

I showed up at 7pm and by then, Matt's home was already packed with friends — friends trying to talk over the loud music about traffic, real estate, and what age to stop putting limits on their kids' screen time.

Nobody visited Greg-who-still-lives-in-an-apartment, and after a drink to toast the birthday boy, most of us switched to sparkling water because we were driving home, and alcohol is really fattening.

By 10 o'clock, most of his guests — including me — had gone home to relieve our babysitters, but also because our heads hurt a little from the music. 

The rest dribbled out slowly over the subsequent hour or two.

By midnight, there was only one left: Matt's mom, who had come despite his warning, and was tearing up the dancefloor in a desperate attempt to make Matt feel that his disappointing party had actually been a success.

Around the time I went to Matt's party, I was working with a writer on a comedy we wanted to make about a floundering couple trying to reconnect. But we were having trouble finding the heart of it.

That night, I saw a couple already living their best lives, but somehow blind to it; striving to recapture their youth, only to discover that while raising two amazing kids, and building a world for them to grow up into, they had — unbeknownst to even themselves — changed.

They were butterflies longing for their days as caterpillars.

It was the key for us to make the changes our screenplay needed to find its heart.

The End of Sex tells the story of a married couple with kids who try to recapture the sex life of their single days, once their little ones have gone off to sleepover camp for a week.

It's also kind of about the destruction to the social fabric of our lives that can be wrought by reckless sexual encounters.

Except with lots of laughs.

And Colin Mochrie.

It will premiere in a cavernous cinema at TIFF this September.

And it will be really really loud.

This year's Toronto International Film Festival runs September 8–18. Find showtimes for The End of Sex here.

Missed it at TIFF? Catch it at the Calgary International Film Festival (September 22–October 2).