THE BREAK-UP A film review by David N. Butterworth Copyright 2006 David N. Butterworth
** (out of ****)
On the strength of its trailer you could be excused for expecting the "romantic comedy" "The Break-Up" to be a laugh riot about a couple (played by Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston) on the outs. Vaughn and Aniston are fine comedic actors, separately if not together, so they certainly know the territory extremely well. But Peyton Reed's film is not that movie. Instead, it's a movie that takes the all-too familiar theme of marital (or in this case mutual, since Gary and Brooke aren't exactly married) dissatisfaction and thrusts it down our throats with unerring accuracy. And in so doing it makes us squirm. Too many times during "The Break-Up" did I say to myself "this isn't funny" and I wasn't referring to the jokes or the attempts at humor, some of which actually work. I was referring to the situation itself, the actual context of the piece. It's just *too* uncomfortable. How can we feel sorry for and/or sympathetic towards these people when we're expected to laugh at their foibles, their frustrations, and their failings? Screenwriters Jeremy Garelick and Jay Lavender are certainly capable of writing funny dialogue and establishing broadly comic situations. What they can't do, of course, is to eliminate the overwhelming sadness at their story's core. On the acting front Vaughn pencils in yet another semi-likable goof the likes of which he's channeled a lot lately ("Wedding Crashers," "Dodgeball") whereas Aniston shows some real and considerable depth. Also notable in smaller but no less effective roles are Vincent D'Onofrio as Gary's entrepreneurially challenged brother Dennis and Judy Davis as Marilyn Dean, the frightening proprietor of the Chicago art gallery Brooke manages.
-- David N. Butterworth dnb@dca.net
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