The Break Up

There is a certain safety net which comes hand in hand with a romantic comedy, a winning formula which reads like a step-by-step guide to guaranteed box office success. Firstly, there is the budget and $52 million for a romantic comedy allows a lot of flexibility. Secondly, the star power and who better to star in it than Jennifer Aniston, the breakout star of the biggest comedy show of all time, and Vince Vaughn, who has reinvented himself as a comic ‘genius’ (using the term loosely) since the disastrous remake of  Psycho (What the hell were you thinking Van Sant?). Thirdly, a marketing campaign and this one has written itself with Aniston finding love with Vaughn following her split with Pitt. So, with this being said, The Break Up had in a place a sizeable budget, two huge superstars, a topical marketing campaign and a title that could not be more perfect, all director Peyton Reed needed to do was ensure that the film had content. The result: lacklustre…and a broken safety net.

The storyline is self-explanatory. Vaughn and Aniston are a couple (God only knows how due to the poor scriptwriting at the beginning in which Vaughn obnoxiously forces her to eat a hot dog then makes fun of her date!) Then, surprisingly enough, they break-up. Erm…that’s all folks.

The plot direction of this film is simply laughable. The story is beyond dismal and there is nothing more frustrating than watching two lengthy back-and-forth arguments with no humour involved. It is billed as a romantic comedy but there is a distinct lack of the latter.

The comedy element (when it’s there at all) attempts to rely on Vaughn’s incoherent rambling speeches which tend to create nothing more than a brief smirk. Vaughn is a very funny man, but he can only showcase his talent with good lines which he didn’t have here.

On the upside, his and Ansiton’s acting, as expected, was good. They have a likeable charm and are very watchable but this is ruined by a weak script and calamitous character development.

Most characters meant nothing because the audience had no idea who they were or why they were there. Some had absolutely no place in the film and were quite frankly bewildering.
The film never reached a climax as there was barely a direction to it. It could have ended four or five times in different places and the outcome would have resulted in the same thing: disbelief and bemusement.

The Break Up is a film without meaning. I have racked my brain to try and interpret one but the only one I could come up with was ‘people break up’. Is this a reflection of life? Is there a deep and meaningful heart to this film beating beyond the plastic, manufactured skin of the modern romantic comedy? No. There is no moral. There is no message.

The tagline asks ‘Whose side are you on?’ when nobody really could care any less.

The Break Up is largely disappointing and if I could sum it up in one word it would me ‘meaningless’, but that might be giving it too much credit.

Last edited: 28th May 2008