Menage a Trois Movies

Cinema to heat up your summer

Have you ever wondered what a threesome might be like? Yes, you and two other fabulous someone's making love as a trio. Or, perhaps your partner has been promoting this as their favorite fantasy and you're somewhat intrigued, but you have a list of questions like is more merrier? Or, is three really a crowd?

Whether it's your fantasy or not, try watching these three, sexy films about love triangles, all foreign and all classics in their own right. They're guaranteed to offer insight into the meaning of love times three. Whatever way you look at it - as a prelude to a tryst or simply as enjoyable sensual entertainment - these films are all good movies - period. They are the perfect pick for intelligent, erotic cinema on a long, hot night.

The Dreamers
Are there rules to the game of three-way love? In this Bertolucci film, France in the turbulent '60s is the backdrop for a love triangle between Matthew, an American student and his new found twin friends, Theo and Isabelle. (Yes, they're brother and sister!)  Friendship turns into intimacy as Matthew and Isabelle become lovers, and Theo takes part in their manipulative love games. This erotic coming of age film, which is dark and intense, with very minimal costuming (read: good looking naked actors) suggests that the ménage a trois might have been more successful if two of the people had not been related.

Y Tu Mamá También
Before the term "cougar" was a Hollywood trend, Luisa, (the Spanish conqueror!), a 28-year-old married woman, embraced life and two hunky, lusty Mexican teens in this extraordinary cinematic road trip, which includes lots of good food, drinking and dancing, too. For Luisa, carpe diem is the theme, and Julio and Tenoch get even more than they ever dreamed of, as the more experienced travel companion shapes the boys into men along the way. Beautifully narrated and hysterical in parts, this film is deeply sensual and intelligent, and will leave you with a new passion for life.

Jules and Jim
Imagine sitting in a room with not one man madly in love with you, or two, but three men vying for your affections. Leave it to the French to make the ultimate movie about ménage à trois, and to point out how possible and impossible a threesome is to sustain.

In this Francois Truffaut film about friendship and love, best friends Jules and Jim will never be the same upon meeting the free-spirited Catherine. Catherine marries Jules. Then Catherine falls for Jim. Jules, loves her so much he is willing to let her fall for his best friend, but these tumultuous unions create a sexual tension that builds and builds causing more than one explosion throughout. Eventually, insatiable Catherine brings even another man into the mix! What's even more intriguing is that the movie is based on a semi-autobiographical book.

So is the fantasy all it's cracked up to be? Can three live together as happily ever after as two? Or, should three lovers make love, without love? The pleasure, the passion, the jealousy and the pain are the plot in this trio of movies, which most likely, they'll leave you with the old-fashioned notion, that in love, three's a crowd. But they are wonderful and rich to watch, no matter what the conclusion.