The Break-Up Breakthrough

It was easy when I was younger and unfettered of responsibilities (in other words, immature and without direction) to suddenly decide to go to a movie, but now that I'm married with a toddler and have a full-time job that involves a lot of night work, getting to go to a movie with the wife can feel like a universal cyclical event, like the planets aligning or a visit from Halley's Comet. Sometimes it works out pretty well, like our M:I3 viewing a few weeks ago. Sometimes it doesn't (we're still debating the merits of Wedding Crashers). I see commercials and watch trailers online and can puzzle out what I'd like to see and what I'd pass on, and I have to say I'm not feeling so far like I've missed much. The wife wants to catch DaVinci, we're both wondering if The Prince will make it through Cars and I'm reservedly excited for Superman Returns (I'm still on a minor Spacey embargo after his tantrum a few years back at a Tribeca Film Festival party I was attending), but I'm not jumping out of my skin to get to the multiplex like I was in, say, 1982 to see Blade Runner or The Thing or E.T. or Poltergeist. I just this week heard from a friend, a younger guy than I, newlywed, no kids as yet, movie fan. He tells me despite the box office surge, he thinks the films are worse this year than last and even that a generally well-regarded hit like X-Men: The Last Stand was so bad it made him want to cry.

So I didn't want to get too worked up before my wife and I went to catch The Break-Up. I'd heard some good notices, but the marketing is selling this movie like a romantic comedy, and we've all seen some saccharine stinkbombs in that genre. Vince Vaughn has that chatterbox thing that can backfire and Jennifer Aniston isn't foolproof, but the wife wanted to see it and when I thought about it, I wanted it to be good myself, so we lined up a sitter and on the opening night of The Omen, this millenium's certain winner of the Most Pointless Remake Award (between this and the reverent tones in which he's regarded in interviews about Superman Returns, Richard Donner must be feeling like the most influential filmmaker in Hollywood, which isn't in my opinion too far from the truth), we braved the TeenyPlex to catch an 8:30 show.

What a remarkable achievement The Break-Up is.

Yes, achievement.

I enjoyed it immensely, even considering that I was wincing and writhing in sympathetic agony at some key moments. Anyone who's had a relationship will recognize some element of themselves in these characters, truly the key to getting your audience to appreciate your film. I'd known Jon Favreau was in the movie, but didn't realize until watching the opening credits (great use of the credits for exposition, by the way, in a manner that's not original but is done very well) that the Vaughn/Favreau/Billingsley gang were involved in producing the movie. Great work.

What struck me the most, however, was the depth the story has, and the maturity of the movie. This would have been treated five years ago like a Farrelly Brothers stoogefest, but here it has a certain gravitas and I never felt like it was pandering. It made me think about my own work so far on I.O.U., a more traditional romantic comedy in the screwball vein about a man and a woman who need to fake a wedding to raise money to pay off their loan shark. While the tone is much different, I am left wondering if I can give my characters that third dimension I think an audience would react favorably to. I'm going to continue down the same road I started on with the script, but on my second pass I'll be mindful of what I can do to deepen the story and the characters.

All I wanted was a good movie and I got some inspiration to boot.