The Break-Up: (2006)

 

Maybe Worth a Date, But This is One Film

You Know You Wouldn’t Marry

 

           

The Break-Up is a conundrum.  It’s about something familiar to us all; relationships.  Meeting someone; falling for that someone; falling out with that same someone.  But there’s just some someones the falling for is so strong the falling out is a mighty near impossible thing to do; even if it’s clearly the best thing for both parties involved.  That’s where The Break-Up begins, with the break-up of Gary and Brooke (Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston); loves who after two years of loving one another suddenly find that they have irreconcilable differences.  Thus, they split.  But there are two problems. 1). Who’s going to get the Condo they were splitting a mortgage on? And 2.) (the bigger problem) They both still love each other, despite their drastic differences, and want to stay together.  The problem is, neither want to admit problem #2 to the other, they want the other person to admit it to them.  So, they come up with a plethora of ways to make the other person want them again, which in the end only result in pushing the significant other even farther away.  This formula has been done innumerable times in movies, but it’s a winning formula, possible of very quirky, charming, and entertaining ideas and reflections.  Unfortunately in The Break-Up you just can’t buy that Vaughn and Aniston are together in the first place.  And if you can’t buy that they’re a couple, it’s difficult to believe the next 90 minutes as you watch them go through the whole interminable, incessant, ubiquitous relationship exiting circle.

           

Initially, critics were really annihilating this movie and the buzz on it was perhaps the worst since Gigli.  But The Break-Up is no Gigli.  It’s definitely not that bad.  While its main concept doesn’t work, it does have a number of scenes that do work.  The laughs aren’t overwhelming, but there are a few, a few good ones.  And there’s some situations and dialogue that will provide both sexes of viewers some serious head nodding and “preaching to the choir” smiling.

           

Director Peyton Reed (who also directed the venerable, Bring It On) is inventive, but can’t save the film from its unbreakable flaw, neither can some likeable writing.  Aniston (Brooke) and Vaughn (Gary) are the draws, but there’s an amazing amount of big-name supporting actors surrounding them, way too many in fact.  Everybody from Ann-Margret to Vince’s best bud from his career-launching Swingers, Jon Favreau.  Favreau is memorable as a bartender with Mafioso undertones who’s Gary’s best friend and advisor.  John Michael Higgins (The Mighty Wind) is also hilarious as Brooke’s extremely happy (but not gay), constantly singing brother, who’s the lead singer for a group called the “Tone Rangers” (hehehe).  But many of the other supporting thespians aren’t very likeable and take up a lot of time while adding little to the story.

           

To the main attractions.  It seems every woman has cried a tear for poor Jennifer Aniston.  She captured their prize, Brad Pitt, and they hated her for him.  Bu then he left her for wild and wily Angelina, and now Jen is the #1 reason to grab a tissue.  She may be the heart of every woman’s sympathy, and everybody’s favorite “friend” (Uhh), but, as I was talking with some friends where I work, name one great movie that Jennifer Aniston was great in.  You can’t, because there aren’t any, and there still aren’t any after The Break-Up.   She’s not bad, she’s pretty, and she has a strong, poignant scene at a concert, but she’s just NOT that great.  And it seems like she’s the same character in every movie; the same stupid, hapless “friend.”  Dare I say she’s also… aging a bit (that skin’s not as soft as it used to be), and though again, she is attractive, her frame is so thin during her teaser derriere scene surely Vaughn’s mind drifted to thoughts of Skeletor.

           

Vince Vaughn is a funny, witty guy.  He’s a man’s man actor, good in movies like Dodgeball and Old School.  Vaughn gives guys like me hope that you can be a star and get a girl like Jennifer Aniston even if you are big, fat, white, and ugly.  And he’s very funny in some scenes here, particularly one where he wins over a date of Brooke’s via a Playstation football game.  But he’s not a romantic, and it’s downright painful watching him trying to be.  And when he argues with Brooke, he’s so foulmouthed and senseless he comes across as the possible jerk he may well be.

           

But all aside, the acting isn’t too bad.  Some of the scenes work, there’s some likeable creativity, and the situation is universally identifiable.  The problem is, or well, there are two big problems with The Break-Up.  A). Again, it’s just unfathomable than Jennifer Anniston and Vince Vaughn are a couple.  They don’t flow, they don’t connect.  If they weren’t actually together in real life, you totally couldn’t believe it, and that they are together is one of those so-hard-to-believe things that it must be fact.  In the movie they just aren’t meant for each other.  Brooke deserves more of an artsy guy who appreciates her more.  Gary deserves more of a party girl who digs him and his passions and will let him be free. And B.) Neither Brooke nor Gary are particularly likeable.  You can identify with their situation but it’s hard to actually identify with them.  Neither of them are willing to give in an inch, and they’re both as stubborn as blind mules.  Since you can’t believe they’re together in the first place, it’s hard to care that they’re breaking up.  How strong those 2 problems hit you will determine how much you like The Break-Up.  If you can look past them, there’s an enjoyable movie here.  If you can’t, then this might just give Gigli a run for its money.

           

The Break-Up has some good things, but it just doesn’t come together.  It’s the type of movie that if it were a girl I was on a date with, at the end of evening, if she asked me out on another date the next night, I’d thank her, smile, but politely decline and say, “Nah, let’s just be friends.”

 

- Movie Review By G. Roger Priddy (6-03-06)