Raunchy Medieval Romcom: The Little Hours

It's difficult to describe the tone of this bawdy, outrageously gigglesome medieval romcom: it's played straight, for laughs, while deeply subversive, satirical and quietly hilarious, just like its 14th century source material, The Decameron. The brilliant comic acting and directing maximize the satire, connecting ancient social norms with current religious, sexual and gender politics. The result is quietly magnificent. CW: kink and sex, religious satire

https://www.confessionsofaclosetromantic.com

Y'all! I cannot tell you how many times I've reread the Elizabeth Lowell medieval romance trilogy series. "Simon the Loyal has vowed never to love, for love makes a warrior weak..."

The Decameron, Vols. I & II (English translation) are available free as downloadable ebooks on Project Gutenberg.

Decameron Web, a project maintained by Brown University, is chock-full of interesting facts about the book and its text: its inspiration, the Italian culture surrounding author Giovanni Boccaccio, the motifs and themes of the allegory, and a fascinating look at sex and the clergy during medieval history.

This corny Virgin Territory trailer emphasizes the bawdy farce and clergy gone wild of this 2007 romcom, also based on The Decameron. It looks like a soft porno about the Black Death, but seems equally randy if that's your mood.

As usual The Little Hours trailer really doesn't capture the complex tone of this movie, so let's take a look at a few scenes.

John C Reilly's face throughout this scene makes the whole thing. Well that, and Dave Franco's innocent yet hilarious way of describing 69 and jizz kink to a priest.

Parts of this movie could be described as Sisters Behaving Badly and no one behaves worse than Aubrey Plaza in a habit. She's a reluctant, eye-rolling bride of Christ in the most hilariously inappropriate way in this scene, poking fun at cloistered clergy's isolation, sexual repression and fear of the secular world in medieval culture.

A fun interview with Seth Meyers and Dave Franco where he describes his wife Alison Brie's reaction to his threesome scene in the movie. Oh yes ladies and gentlemen, it's a hot one. Very little consent, sadly, but very hot.

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