They say breaking up is hard to do, right? For some of us it's harder than others. It's been a weird journey watching Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau's partnership evolve over the years. From the hipster chic that was Swingers back in 1995, to the haphazard mess that Made, and now as adults with supposedly more mature work like The Break Up and Couples Retreat. The two have gotten much larger(in mor ways than one) in very different ways, but when reunited on screen together, Vaughn and Favreau seem to do their best at trying to recapture the sophomoric chemistry of 1996, and it never quite works. Couples Retreat is one of those failed exercises. A toothless, meandering whine-fest disguised as comic farce. If I could've I would've divorced myself from the theatre, but at this point I'll settle for Vaughn and Favreau going their separate ways.
Vaughn and Malin Ackerman(Watchmen, The Heartbreak Kid) are Dave and Ronnie, a long time married couple settling into the daily grind that comes along with having kids. They still love each other, but find little time to enjoy each other's company. Vaughn does his usual routine of being a lovable blowhard who takes people for granted. Their friends are all couples going through various stages of disarray. Jason Bateman and Kristen Bell are Jason and Cynthia, an obnoxiously boring couple on the verge of a divorce because of their inability to have kids. Favreau and Kristen Davis are the hopelessly hurtful Joey and Lucy, who exist in a loveless marriage full of lies. Faizon Love and some other chick are Shane and Trudi, here to add a bit of color to the goings-on. Normally I don't notice or care when minority characters are thrown in for reasons other than the benefit of story, but it's so blatantly obvious here that I couldn't help but pay attention to it. Even the plot struggles to find a reason for their existence, but I'll get to that later.
The four couples plan an excursion to a secluded island paradise known as Eden. Only one couple is going there for the actual couples therapy implied in the pamphlet. The rest are hoping for a week of jet skis and scuba diving, or in the case of Joey & Lucy, a chance to cheat in a brand new locale. They are greeted by a snobby manager named Sctanley(the C is intentional), but it's the "great" Monsieur Marcel(Jean Reno, looking less like Leon every movie) who leads the therapy sessions. Apparently these are the only 8 people on the island who need it. Everybody else is across the way at Eden East, an island which looks like it's MTV Spring Break all year 'round. No wonder everybody wants to go there instead.
Forced into partaking of all the couples building and little actual fun 'n sun, each couples various issues takes the forefront. If you're like me, you might find it difficult to find anything funny about two people arguing over their inability to conceive. Or two people figuring out that they've put their kids ahead of their own happiness. What exactly is funny about that? And that's my biggest problem with Couples Retreat in a nutshell. It's simply not funny.
It's not for the lack of trying. Vince Vaughn has used the same old man-child shtick so often that he can do it in his sleep, but I've noticed that the best Vaughn work has been done when he himself isn't at the helm. Here, Vaughn and Favreau tackled the script, and they draw themselves as bland outlines of real people. Favreau does his usual tough guy chick magnet bit; Vaughn with a watered down version of the same role he's been living off of for years. Understandably, priorities and humor changes as we get older, but it's almost uncomfortable watching Vaughn try so hard to relive those glory days of even just 4 or 5 years ago. There's a sequence in Retreat, where Vaughn is stuck in the water surrounded by sharks, that a few years ago would've been sharp and vulgar and probably laugh out loud hilarious. Here it's weak and mind numbingly tedious. What's worse is that the trailers are deceptive, hinting at a filthier film than we were actually presented. A lot seems to have been left on the cutting room floor.
I'm at a complete loss to figure out what the message of the film is supposed to be. If the point is to "respect your partner", then they could've done that in about half the running time. Jason and Cynthia's storyline is particularly made mincemeat, but nothing was going to save it anyway due to the extreme lack of chemistry between Bateman and Bell. It was kinda creepy, actually. Just putting some glasses on her isn't going to make her seem any closer to his age, sorry. Nothing, however, could've prepared me for the lameness that was Shane and Trudi. Recently divorced and now dating the wild partying, hard drinking 20 year old Trudi, the two are little more than a plot device. I can't seem to figure out any reason whatsoever that Shane would be friends with these people, not because of the race difference mind you, but because there seems to be a general lack of concern from his friends about his issues...until it affects everyone else. In an effort to not spoil this lousy film's ending, I won't reveal how Shane's problem is actually resolved, but it'd be more believable if the Swedish Swimsuit Team swung in on a chandelier and landed on his friggin' lap. Ridiculous. All of their resolutions are absurd, to be honest, but Shane's is jaw dropping stupid.
Upon arriving at Eden, Joey ecstatically exclaims how the island "looks like a screensaver"! He couldn't be more right. This is a beautifully shot film thanks to the plush locale. It's too bad it couldn't have been a real screen saver, and I could just push a mouse and make this movie disappear for awhile. That would give me enough time to retreat on my own.
4/10
