The Break-Up
By: Patrick Vu | Category: On DVD | 06/15/06 | 09:03 AM
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 Grade: C+ | Genre: Romantic Comedy (Supposedly)
Summary: The problem(s) with The Break-Up is that it was/is marketed as a romantic comedy that in reality is more serious and not as romantic as you would expect. You don't really feel anything for the characters and don't really understand why Gary can't get his act together early on, but when he finally does, why it's just not enough for Brooke.
Review: Many therapists like to encourage their patients to act out the quirks of relationship conflicts to help find resolve and an eventual inner peace. Jennifer Aniston takes that method one step further in her new movie, The Break-Up, playing a woman dealing with the inevitable end of her relationship with Brad...I mean Gary (Vince Vaughn). Actors tend to borrow from real life experiences in order to create a role that feels more genuine. Luckily, Aniston doesn't have to go far in her research as her real life divorce (in case you haven't heard) to Mr. Pitt contributes to this tired story about a couple, Gary and Brooke (Aniston), who can't seem to turn around their doomed relationship. |
So why can't these two kids just work it out? It's tough to say, when we don't really get a sense of why they got together in the first place. Sure there's the intro scene of how the two met, where a charmingly obnoxious Gary (another Vaughn typecast) goes after Brooke at a baseball game even though she's there with another guy. Fast forward a couple years, and they are living together in a condo they love more than each other. How they stayed together or why they would even think about living with each other is beyond any of us except for those that are satisfied with a montage of happy cuddly photographs of their life together thus far. But this isn't a film about how love is born, is it? Rather, it's about how love can and will die for the pair and as the movie title (as well as in Vaughn and Aniston interviews) clearly points out, this is not a film about how to save a failing relationship.
Let's start with Gary. He's a loyal Chicago Cubs fan who owns, with his two brothers, a tour bus company where he is the fast talking guide. Gary enjoys video games and even has an appreciation for Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel or as Gary likes to call it, "The Sixteenth Chapel." He's fun loving and always the life of the party. Unfortunately, he is centered on himself without a conscience concern for the feelings of those around him.
Brooke - beautiful, smart and hard-working - doesn't seem to have any flaws until her insistence on Gary changing his habits clouds her better judgment, which motivates her to end the relationship. However, the real motive behind her decision is the hope that Gary will see the error in his ways and come to his senses when he realizes that Brooke is forever gone. The big problem is that, during the break-up, they are still living in the same condo that they both own (until it's sold), and the annoyances that each inject into the relationship don't help to heal wounds that time apart should have done.
Starring: Vince Vaughn, Jennifer Aniston, Jon Favreau, Jason Bateman, Cole Hauser, Joey Lauren Adams
Director: Peyton Reed |
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The arguments that the two have are quite funny and do hit close to home. For instance, what guy hasn't wanted a pool table in the living room or hasn't heard, "I just want you to want to do the dishes?" None are enough to help save the movie or relationship. The one bright spot of the film is Brooke's ambiguously gay brother, Richard, who heads an acapella group and can and will burst out in song. His priceless rendition of Yes' "Owner of a Lonely Heart" steals the movie and is worth the price of admission.
Spoiler Alert!!!
So as the movie meanders along trying to decide whether or not to have the two get back together, Brooke's plan to change Gary through a separation actually does work (go figure) and Gary is now ready to become the man Brooke has always known he could be. However, Brooke, who finally gets her way, decides that she doesn't feel the same and plans a trip out of the country to rediscover the woman she really already knows. So a year later, the two run into each other and Gary is a changed man. He's lost weight, cleaned himself up and has expanded his business while Brooke returns to Chicago seemingly the same woman. We're left with the two in polite conversation agreeing to "maybe get together sometime." WHAT! Break-ups normally imply a getting back together, but the Hollywood formula is thrown out the window this time when it could have and should have been kept to save an otherwise waste of a movie that could have been so much more enjoyable.
The problem(s) with The Break-Up is that it was/is marketed as a romantic comedy that in reality is more serious and not as romantic as you would expect. You don't really feel anything for the characters and don't really understand why Gary can't get his act together early on, and when he finally does, why it's just not enough for Brooke. Both are likable but neither are endearing. When it's all said and done, we really don't care that the two don't get back together.
Release Date: June 2, 2006
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