When tangible sexual ideas are as erotic as the actual sex, you know something special has been hatched. In many ways the best couples movie to come along in years, the impeccably acted and consistently arousing An Open Invitation manages to portray the nascent swingers’ scene and meld it into a fantastic feature about the enhancement of a normal marriage. Designed as a calling card to the swingers’ community who either love adult movies or don’t consume them (depending on whom you ask), this dense, professionally made and textured feature bridges the sometimes expansive gap between the common female-centric couples title and erotic porn.

Produced in San Francisco by Kink.com, in conjunction with Private, Open Invitation makes great use of locations and evokes career-defining performances from India Summer, James Deen and Lorelei Lee, as well as the rest of the winning cast. Summer and Deen play a couple whose marriage is not in trouble, but who accidently come across a married duo (Lee and Mickey Mod) who play in the alternative lifestyle. This strengthens Deen and Summer’s sex life, as evidenced by two contrasting hardcore scenes between the couple before and after they have their erotic awakening.

The screenplay by director Ilana Rothman and Andrew Sullivan has enough plot twists to keep the viewer guessing. But it’s the acting and directing that make even the non-sex scenes as erotic as the explicit ones. After the two couples hook up, India and Lorelei accidently meet at a business meeting. Acting with their eyes and using simple body language, the sexual tension is palpable. When they meet up for some girl-on-girl love in a photography studio, the best all-girl sex scene of the year ensues, with the full thrust of that tension boiling over.

The other sex scenes, performed in the context of the story, work extremely well. For instance, two simultaneous four-on-four scenes, where Summer and Deen get their first taste of swinging, are expertly photographed and mounted with precision. The hardcore sequence with Summer, Deen, Lee and Mod is particularly hot. The huge swingers’ orgy at An Open Invitation’s climax combines the main players with real adult swingers, and it should serve as a primer for any porn director for making an orgy scene beautiful and erotic. Natural and stunning to look at, it has more sexy pairings and group segments than one could begin to list. It just needs to be seen. LifestyleLounge.com provides the backdrop for the swingers’ part of the story, and many of their actual members appear in that epic orgy.

I give An Open Invitation my highest recommendation as an erotic picture, but also as a sociological study of a market moving quickly from niche to mainstream. Whether a couple wants to try an open relationship or just use this as a fantasy, it works on those and many other levels. Not just another feature release but a real game-changer.