| THE BREAK-UP |
 2006 - USADirector: Peyton Reed
- Reviewed by Vickie
Vince Vaughn (dialing his usual onscreen persona down many notches) and Jennifer Aniston co-star as Gary and Brooke, a seemingly happy couple who have been together for a few years. They’ve bought a gorgeous condo together. He works alongside his brothers (the always-creepy Cole Hauser and the inexplicably manic Vincent D’Onofrio) as a bus-tour guide in Chicago, and she’s an assistant at an art gallery owned by the horribly underused Judy Davis. (It’s JUDY FLIPPIN’ DAVIS, people! And THIS is all you give her to do?!?!) For reasons known to the characters but not the audience, the couple’s troubles come to a head one night over the oft-shown scene involving the purchase of an insufficient amount of lemons. Suddenly, Brooke has had enough—ENOUGH!—and, in a fit of anger, declares that their relationship is over. She storms off, he’s left confused… but they never talk about it and misunderstandings, vindictiveness, anger, regret and sadness ensue. See, Brooke wasn’t entirely serious, but she never says so and engages in one lame scheme after another to alternately: 1. get Gary back; 2. make Gary jealous; 3. teach Gary a lesson; or all of the above. She laments her situation to her perpetually patient best friend (Joey Lauren Adams, also sorely wasted here), as Gary, meanwhile, consults his best friend Johnny O (Jon Favreau), who seems to have an endless stream of sketchy ideas about how to deal with the situation. Even rereading that last paragraph, the big problem with The Break-Up becomes clearer: too many people! The movie is, in theory, about Gary and Brooke and their relationship, but there are literally dozens of other characters flitting in and out of the action, offering opinions and perspective, including but not limited to all of the ones mentioned above plus Brooke’s choral-singer brother (John Michael Higgins), Brooke’s fey co-worker (Justin Long), an art patron (Ivan Sergei) who flirts with Brooke, Brooke’s best friend’s husband (OMG! it’s an all-grown-up Peter Billingsley of A Christmas Story fame!), the couple’s realtor (Jason Bateman)… and so on and so on. Thing is, all these trivial interactions with periphery characters shifts all the focus off the two people we’re supposed to care about most. Vaughn and Aniston are both incredibly likable and fun to watch, so it’s no surprise that, despite the somewhat scattered script, they’re at their best when they’re opposite each other onscreen. Alternately funny and surprisingly heartbreaking, the scenes featuring just Gary and Brooke—especially when the couple’s exchanges become jarringly sincere and painful—are far, far better than any featuring either of them yakking with anybody else. Don’t get me wrong, all of the bit players (and that’s pretty much what they are) are great actors in their own right, but they feel out of place here… like they’ve been dropped in to add credibility when they’re really not necessary. The movie could have stood strong on its own, thinned out with fewer characters and lesser-known names inhabiting them, and focusing solely on the appealing pair who get the above-the-title billing. |
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Here’s the thing about The Break-Up: it’s really not that funny.
And it’s not really intended to be funny, despite what its marketing
campaign would have you believe. It rides a fine line between comedy
and comedy-drama, but doesn’t fully commit either way (appropriate,
given the subject matter, I guess) and the result left me feeling kind
of meh.
