I do not get along well with certain categories of American comedy films. The idiot manchild era pretty much made me swear off all studio comedies until very recently. I've started to make attempts to watch some of the titles from the late '90s and early 2000s to try and get my head around the disconnect, and I came across "The Break-Up," the 2006 anti-rom-com starring Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston. The reviews were terrible and the audience reaction wasn't much better. And maybe it's because my comedy tastes were so diametrically opposed to everybody else at this point in time, but I liked it. I didn't think the movie was very funny, but I liked it.
Vaughn and Aniston play Gary and Brooke, a couple who meet at a Chicago Cubs game, fall in love, and move in together. However, it's obvious that they're very mismatched. Vaughn works as a tour guide for his family business and likes being a blue collar lug. Brooke works at a fancy art gallery and does things like throw dinner parties and go to the ballet. The two clash over Gary's inability to make an effort and maintain his independence and Brooke feeling unappreciated and shut out. After a big argument, the two are on the outs. The title spoils the movie, but neither Gary nor Brooke are in a hurry to split, and don't want to sell their home, so they try to find a way to work through their problems.
We're in the territory of dramedies like "Annie Hall" and "Marriage Story," exploring the ins and outs of a doomed relationship. However, "The Break-Up" has a tone that is way too broad for its premise. Gary and Brooke's problems and their fights are very real - to the point where it's uncomfortable, but also cathartic to listen to them argue. However, they exist in a studio comedy version of Chicago where Brooke has a snooty boss played by Judy Davis, and a weirdo co-worker played by Justin Long in a terrible wig. Gary does things like hire strippers to come to his poker night in retaliation for Brooke dating someone new. There are also some more realistic, grounded characters to provide good advice - Brooke's sister Addie (Joey Lauren Adams) and Gary's pal Johnny O (John Favreau) - but they're not in the movie much. Instead, we get a lot of sitcom-level interactions and escalations that come across as very contrived, eating up too much of the screen time.
I understand why the movie got the hostile reception that it did. It's not funny. It's not the rom-com that it looks like on the box. However, there are enough bits and pieces of a smarter, more dramatic film in "The Break-Up" that it held my attention, and Vaughn and Aniston prove repeatedly that they would've been perfectly capable of pulling this version off. They're very well matched and excellent together onscreen. Though the movie is written to be more from Gary's POV, Brooke never comes off as unpleasant or unreasonable. Gary is a manchild, but one with the sensitivity to appreciate when he's overstepped, and hints of more going on under the surface. The battle-of-the-sexes hijinks are often trite, and the subversion of the usual romantic comedy tropes doesn't really work, but the actors make a lot of it watchable anyway.
Director Peyton Reed has a long career in comedy films and television shows, and "The Break-Up" is easily the most dramatic project he's ever worked on. Screenwriter Jeremy Garelick would go on to write "The Hangover" shortly after "The Break-Up" was released. And I suspect that this is why "The Break-Up" feels like a well-intentioned effort by people who only knew how to do comedy trying to make something more dramatic and heartfelt. I wish the film's lack of success hadn't put them off of trying more in this vein. "The Break-Up" isn't a very good movie but it's way more ambitious and interesting than I expected, and worth taking a look at if you like either of the leads.
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