Here’s a blurb for the marketers, no charge:
“The Break-Up is the feel-uncomfortable movie of the summer!”
And it’s not just because the fate of Jennifer Aniston’s own marriage hovers over the film like the smell of fish on a hot day. But the two are inevitably intertwined.
You can see where a script about letting go of a relationship-gone-sour might have appealed to Aniston early last year, when she said yes to this thing. And, bonus, it eschews an evenhanded “he said, she said” for a more comforting breakup scenario. That is to say the guy (Vince Vaughn) is a selfish jackass.
But what might have been therapeutic for her is pure pain for an audience. This is definitely not a date movie.
The Break-Up is a “romantic comedy” that is neither romantic nor funny. It’s a portrait of a dead love affair amid close quarters — one that might have worked if played darkly a la The War Of The Roses. Instead it’s hamhandedly squeezed through the Hollywood rom-com template, resulting in a movie as moribund as the relationship it portrays.
The Break-Up wastes no time killing off its romantic core. Scene 1 sees Gary (Vaughn), a Chicago tour-bus entrepreneur, use an improbably aggressive pickup routine at a Cubs game to get a date with art gallery worker Brooke (Aniston). In Scene 2, they’re living together, about to play host to a dinner involving both of their families. Gary would rather watch a ball game or play video games than set the table. He has messed up an errand involving lemons. The dinner is a clash of nutbars. After everyone leaves, he refuses to wash dishes. They break up. It’s that cut and dried.
But they’re still living in their killer downtown condo, which sets up the unremitting, deadening tension for the remaining 80 minutes of the movie.
It’s obvious early on that Gary and Brooke are utterly mismatched.
And yet, there’s something in the Hollywood code that says you just can’t go with your dark impulses in a situation like this. After every hurtful event (e.g., she starts dating, and in response he organizes a strip-poker game that ends in a lap dance she walks in on), they surreptitiously look toward each other moonie-eyed and stricken, as if one self-revelatory moment will be all that stands in the way of a happy ending.
Sorry, but this is all about conflict and awkwardness.
A great supporting cast — including Vincent D’Onofrio, Jon Favreau, John Michael Higgins and Judy Davis (in an over-the-top turn as Brooke’s Anna Wintour-esque boss) — has little to do but squirm as they bear witness to Gary and Brooke’s fights in social situations. Bowling league matches, Pictionary games.
Apropos of that, what is it about Pictionary that it’s a crucible for squabbling couples in TV and movies?
Think Kirk and LuAnn Van Houten in The Simpsons.
At least that breakup was funny.
BOTTOM LINE: A movie about two mismatched caged animals might have played well as a dark comedy a la War Of The Roses. Instead, this is an uncomfortable mopefest about prolonging the inevitable for no good reason, a “romantic comedy” that’s neither romantic nor funny.
(This film is rated PG)
More Movie Reviews
