Sex

The old maxim that men have only one thing on their minds gets an expansive corrective in Dag Johan Haugerud's “Sex” — the very title of which cheekily misdirects us with its blunt simplicity. Sex certainly comes up early and often in this playful, intricately nuanced character study, but in consistently surprising, stereotype-averse ways. Following two straight male co-workers as they open up to each other about recent experiences that have challenged their own sexual and gender identities, Haugerud’s sly comedy addresses various crises of modern masculinity with a light, humane touch, finding more curiosity than toxicity in its workaday characters — and making a case for seemingly aberrant desires and impulses as an everyday fact of life.

With its loosely discursive quality — it’s clear Haugerud was a novelist before he turned to filmmaking — and measured, good-humored approach to subject matter usually treated with more heated, heightened drama on screen, “Sex” aptly sets the tone for the director’s trilogy of films examining human relationships and intimacy in modern Norway. It premiered in the Panorama sidebar of last year’s Berlinale, before the entire project got a significant boost with a Venice competition slot for the second entry, “Love.” The third, “Dreams,” will premiere internationally in Berlin’s competition this month, upon which those distributors who have been waiting for the full picture to emerge can determine the best release plan for these unusual but warmly accessible films. (Strand Releasing has secured the trilogy for the U.S.) Each stands independently as a narrative, though they share all manner of complementary themes and perspectives.

Haugerud’s writing is thoughtful and rife with substantial ideas, but also delights in puckish diversions and shaggy-dog anecdotes — some of which illuminate the themes at hand, while others merely highlight the eccentric perversity of man in general. Best of all, he takes his characters at their word, without judgment or cynical point-scoring off their behavior. In a sense, the story world of “Sex” is a kind of Scandi idyll — shot by DP Cecilie Semec with a perennially airy brightness — where men get to experiment sexually and psychologically without facing violent prejudice or binary assumptions from the outside world, give or take some maturely handled domestic discord at home. That may strike some viewers as more progressive, or indeed more fantastical, than others. But as a thought experiment, and indeed a body experiment, it’s unexpectedly seductive.