The Break-Up (2006) July 28, 2007
Posted by gproject in : Recently Viewed , trackbackDirected by: Peyton Reed
This romantic comedy turns the usual boy meets girl story on its head, telling the tale of two people going through the slightly more painful stages of a break-up. Obviously, and in order to keep the movie entertaining, they don’t take it amicably, which leads to a no-holds-barred battle of the sexes with each partner constantly trying to one-up the other to see who will get jealous, or relent, before they lose their apartment and their life together, forever.
Vince Vaughn is Gary Grobowski, a bus tour operator in the Chicago area, who meets and falls for Brooke Meyers (Jennifer Aniston), an art-dealership worker. Cut to some time later and the couple are sharing an apartment together, but the relationship is under strain. Gary’s immature attitude and Brooke’s slightly overbearing nature leads to a less than harmonious separation that neither party really wants. However, with nowhere else to live and under bad advice from friends, the couple wage a war that threatens to destroy the good nature of both parties.
The story is conveyed in quite an interesting way, with a little bit of Gary and Brooke’s first meeting preceding the credits, followed by a jump forward into the ‘beginning of the end’ of their relationship. From there, the movie plays out in a series of segments that show various clashes or schemes between the couple as they are forced to live together in a state of disharmony. These pieces are woven together neatly though, making it difficult to see the joins and stopping it from becoming just a series of bad relationship sketches. The conclusion is a nice touch also, and worth sticking around for.
The film features a strong cast who easily make up for any deficiencies in the script – although it can be hard to tell where the written word stops and the improvising begins. Vince Vaughn is naturally funny, but plays very well next to Jennifer Aniston who also gets to flex her comic muscle throughout. Great too, are the supporting cast, playing the comedic aspects of their respective ‘side’ to great effect. On Brooke’s side are the slightly quirky Justin Long and an authoritative Joey Lauren Adams, while on Gary’s side, Jason Bateman and Vaughn’s Swingers comrade Jon Favreau.
It’s a pretty grounded movie, and very believable in terms of the central couple’s characterisation and attitudes. The conversations between Gary and best-friend Johnny, or Brooke and her confidant Addie, seem pretty true to life, even as the couple’s situation gets more and more bizarre. Meanwhile, Bring It On and Down With Love director Peyton Reed keeps things moving along nicely, even if the nature of this movie places more emphasis on the cast than any fancy visual stylistics.
Overall, this is a solid 105-minutes; both funny and heartfelt in the right places, with some quality performances from a fine set of actors and actresses, and featuring decent pacing and direction. So surely a perfect score? Well not exactly, but that’s mainly down to the simplistic nature of the plot and a need for more overtly funny moments, rather than the sly smiles and chuckles it presents. The main failing is that any time a laugh is directed at either of the characters, you never really know if you are supposed to join in, or empathise. Still, its re-working of the standard love story narrative is very effective, and although it may stray into stereotypical regions every so often, the ending still plays out very strongly. There’s certainly plenty worth seeing, but nothing worth really getting attached to.
Comments»
I watched this at the weekend with my gf and her sister. We had all thought that the original trailer we saw in the cinema looked excellent - but I was left very disappointed by the film itself.
I totally agree with your comment about the awkwardness of some of the jokes/situations. If anything the writing seemed a bit too real, in that I did feel like I was sitting through a 2 hour argument.
And I wish that there was more from Favreau and Lauren-Adams, both of whom I love from earlier films. They seemed very side-lined to me.
But the gilrs both really enjoyed it and were left very emotional come the end! (huh, women! etc)
I too wanted more from the friends, especially on Gary’s side, all of whom are great comic actors and would have maybe brought more big laughs to the movie. I still enjoyed it, but you’re right, everyone except the central couple felt pretty pushed to the sides.