- Title: The Break-Up
- IMDb: link
What happened here? The ingredients are here for a good film, but nothing happens. Aniston’s second disappointment of the year is even worse than the first (Friends with Money – read that review here). Guys if your girl wants to see this find an excuse, any will do even if you have to cause yourself some physical pain (it will be less than viewing this flick trust me), to stay away.
Brooke (Jennifer Aniston) the sexy art dealer and Gary (Vince Vaughn) the tour bus director met cute at a Cubs/Sox game and have been together ever since. Brooke feels Vince isn’t putting enough into the relationship and decides to break-up with him not because she wants to break-up but because she thinks it will make him love her more and admit he is wrong. Such twisted-movie-female-logic is the stuff this film is made of.
Nothing happens naturally; events occur solely because they were called for in this increasingly implausible script. We get Brooke’s gay brother (John Michael Higgins) and his insanely inexplicable behavior. Sure it’s funny but it, like the rest of the jokes in the film, seem more suited to sketches on Saturday Night Live. It wouldn’t be so bad if every character in the film didn’t seem to be out of some alternate universe of cardboard characters who keep doing irrational action after irrational action because the overseeing puppeteers think it’s hilarious.
Aniston and Vaughn do what they can with the script but the truth is neither of the characters is that likeable. Brooke is set on trying to force Gary to change by torturing him (and the audience) through humiliation after humiliation. Huh? Gee, I wonder why he isn’t groveling yet. And Gary is such a self-centered prick that despite all Brooke does to him he never becomes sympathetic. So you’ve got a break-up between a crazy bitch and a complete asshole; why should we care again?
I could spend a little time discussing the odd continuity problems as pieces of the apartment set are constantly being moved around (or replaced) for different shots and disappear and reappear at random. But since the filmmakers didn’t care enough to watch out for that stuff and there are other more pressing concerns I’ll just move on.
I must point out the film also fails in its writing. The scene of the break-up itself occurs early in the film after a family dinner party and offers the perfect opportunity for the speech between them to actually take place in the scene immediately afterwards. Instead the film keeps creating unrealistic and contrived situations to keep these two apart and at each other’s throats when that one simple talk which occurs an hour later would have solved everything. It doesn’t happen just once because Vaughn has the same talk with his best friend (Jon Favreau) who originally gives him moronic movie buddy advice but an hour later gives him the meaningful speech that would have solved his problems.
So why are we forced to wait so long before these characters do what they should do naturally so much earlier in the film? Because the writers (Jeremy Garelick and Jay Lavender) and director Peyton Reed are lazy and understand in doing so then they have no film. All of those silly contrived scenes won’t work and they’d be forced into making a better film. The film breaks our “One Dumb Move Rule.” Any film where the entire plot can be solved by one action or word at any time during the film and isn’t done for no reason than the script calls for the prolonged agonizing boredom of the audience is just pathetic, poorly thought out, cheap , and juvenile. Movie audiences, even those with lower expectations these days, deserve better.
In truth the film isn’t about their relationship or the characters; its solely about putting the characters in contrived romantic comedy situations and then pointing the camera, shooting, and moving on to the next contrived set-up. Despite some good performances (especially by Favreau and Joey Lauren Adams who steal the film as the best friends) and some scattered through genuine funny moments the film never puts them all together. It can’t decide whether it wants to be a comedy or drama, it doesn’t have the balls to go for a War of the Roses type fight by admitting the relationship is over and letting them duke it out. Instead the film wants to tease us by having both characters simultaneously want to get back together but act like they want to break-up. Why? Don’t ask me; I watched the film and still didn’t understand. Folks, it’s just an extremely average formulaic film; now if that’s your cup of tea go ahead, but I can’t bring myself to recommend it. I could barely stand to watch it.