The Donor Party: Review

28th February 2023

Jaclyn (Malin Akerman) is lonely and desperate to have a baby. She thought she was doing fine, but then she sees her ex with his new wife and their baby and it opens up old wounds. Sharing her regrets with her friends, Molly (Erinn Hayes) and Amandine (Bria Henderson), a plan is soon hatched to make Jaclyn’s dream come true.

All they have to do is arrange a party and introduce her to some eligible bachelors. Then once she hits it off, they can donate to her baby fund the old fashioned way. However, the best laid plans rarely work especially when trying to get laid.

The Donor Party is an ensemble comedy written and directed by Thom Harp which not only serves as a sex comedy, but also talks about what it’s like to date in your forties. What seems to be a shaky premise at first turns into a comedy of errors which has a heart at its centre. Although it’s a shame that despite the many characters, director Harp doesn’t know what to do with all of them.

Having a comedy being about a group of people in this age range is unusual as well because those kinds of things are normally seen for the young. Comedies like American Pie and Booksmart seem to be about the start of getting into relationships and having sex for the first time. However, nobody really talks about what happens when you’ve done it all and still end up wanting more.

Unfortunately, this does mean that perhaps like Jaclyn, there really isn’t much of a focus on the goal. That’s because despite some great performances from Jerry O’ Connell and Jeff Torres, it doesn’t feel like The Donor Party knows what it wants to say to redeem its central character.

On the one hand you have a protagonist who the audience knows is going about things all wrong, but on the other the movie is trying to justify her actions right until the end.

There are some very nice moments which are well thought out and some laugh out loud characters. However, in the end Jaclyn doesn’t really feel like a character who’s learned anything.

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