The Break-Up

The Break-Up has enough insights into a relationship, and into human behavior in general, that everyone will identify with aspects of the main characters. The fact that it is a little clumsy or heavy-handed at times doesn’t so much distract as it does show promise; the writing behind the movie showed cleverness and wit and great sense of who people are. It’s a novice effort from two young writers, and it shows in parts, but when the skills are polished and they have found a better way to film the human aspects of a story I think they’ll achieve much greater things.

Vince Vaughn saves this movie and the producers knew it. The material here is weak enough that anyone else would have withered miserably trying to pull it off. Jennifer Aniston’s gift isn’t so much who she is but who she isn’t. She isn’t the actress that tries to steal scenes or wants to pull off all the jokes on her own. She clearly understands her role is to play the part with some heart and to respond to, or be the butt of, Vince Vaughn’s jokes. This is the second time Anniston played a supporting role to one of the funniest men in film, pulling it off easily with Ben Stiller in Along Came Polly. It’s disappointing to see critics overlook or dismiss Anniston as these roles are much more difficult than she gets credit for.

OK, Anniston is gorgeous and there’s always that in her favor, but there is more to her. Her performance is convincing when the movie moves from absurdly funny to sad and disturbing. The heartbroken Anniston is upsetting and we want nothing more than to see someone cheer her up. It’s amazing how much talent it takes, and how little ego, to be the one always reacting to the joke rather than making it. Jackie Gleason always said the he marveled at Art Carney’s ability to crack a joke, but Gleason understood that his gift lay in reacting to the other characters and that’s what he did. Anniston seems to get that too and after this film she should get her due.

The story pits Gary (Vaughn) and Brooke (Anniston) in an escalating war in which each of them tries to make the other jealous and convince them that yes, thank you, I’m getting along just fine without you.

The problem, predictably, is that back and forth spirals out of control and moves from the realm of harmless and funny and into hurtful and damaging. Poor advice from their friends coupled with a false sense of security concerning their own relationship leads to situation that seemingly can’t be reversed.

It begins with Brooke believing that Gary does not appreciate her or the efforts it takes to clean up after him and deal with his sports and video game obsession. Gary, on the other hand, feels like Brooke’s inability to understand how badly he needs a pool table is a serious problem.

The reason this movie can involve the audience at all is because both characters are likeable and we want to see them happy. It’s clear that neither one of them wants the break-up to happen and there’s plenty of moments were you know that one conversation, one word, or one apology could put a stop to the whole mess. It’s like rooting for a terrible sports team, you know they’re going to lose, you want to just leap through the screen and do it for them because from an objective distance their mistakes are so clear to see, but in the end all you can do is look away as things get worse.

Brooke continues to follow the bad advice from her friends and from her eccentric boss, played by a shriveled Judy Davis who looks as though she should be auditioning for a role next to the other dead people in the waiting room of Beetle Juice.

Gary takes his sweet time doing some soul searching before a tirade from his brother, played by the extremely talented Vincent D’Onforio, and a long overdue heart to heart from his best friend convinces him there may be something to the accusation that he’s thoughtless and selfish.

Brookes strategy of parading men in front of him to make him jealous succeeds in making him angry and convincing him it really is over while in real life, any rationale man could have seen right through the ploy and realized he should just take her back.

The main problem in this movie is that for the Break-Up to occur the main characters, funny as they are, have to be clueless. They have to blindly follow shoddy advice, they have to ignore the overt hints they throw at each other and skillfully avoid having the one conversation that could have straightened it out.

Interestingly, the same things that are problematic also add to the intrigue. Because we’ve all known that couple that should have been a perfect fit but for some reason, they just weren’t. In the Break-Up we want each person to change enough to make this work because on paper it would be a great match but in practice, they’re completely dysfunctional. So you’re left to root for them to be happy, just not together. In that way we share the sad realization that with them and come to understand this relationship is hopelessly broken and it needs to end for the betterment of them both.

In the end it’s a very funny film that has so much more to say about people and relationships than it actually does. It falls just short of being insightful, just short of being moving and leaves you wondering just what was missing; what it does accomplish is making you laugh and making you empathize. And for two young writers that I expect we’ll see more of it could have done a lot worse.