love in a hopeless place (part i)
Last weekend, I did a romcom double-bill with The Roses (trailer) and Splitsville (trailer). Both films are about dysfunctional couples, but also reveal something about the state of relationships, specifically from the perspective of their straight, white, male screenwriters. I'm gonna be spoiling the hell out of these films to properly discuss them, so if that's not your thing you should probably stop reading now.
The former is a "reimagining" starring Olivia Colman and Benedict Cumberbatch, based on the 1981 book, the War of the Roses, rather than the 1989 film of the same name. Over a decade or so, we watch the couple (him, an architect; her, a chef and restauranteur) become rich, successful, and increasingly resentful toward one another until the relationship more-or-less unravels, with the key draw being how spiteful the dissolution is. The titled may have been shortened, but the promise of the film is watching two top-tier actors skillfully, comedically going at it. (It's the weaker of the two films so I'm gonna save writing about it for part 2.)
The latter is an indie film starring and co-written by Michael Angelo Covino and Kyle Marvin as best friends married to characters played by Dakota Johnson1 and Adria Arjona2, respectively. The inciting events are Ashley (Arjona) asking for a divorce from Carey (Marvin) because she wants to sleep with other people, coupled with Carey learning his long-time friends Paul and Julie (Covino and Johnson, respectively) are in an open relationship.
The film has its moments, but how much you lean into it will hinge on how much you buy the central misunderstanding: Paul and Julie's open relationship is revealed to be performative. While, when telling Carey, they both bask in how evolved they are by being in one, the film reveals that neither had acted on it, nor really even wanted it. But, when Paul goes on a business trip, and Julie convinces herself it's to meet a lover, she sleeps with Carey, setting off a chaotic series of events.
The joke here is straight, white people trends. Well, at least from 2018. (The Cut published a peak of six pieces on open relationships that year.) I understand that as a queer person who read the Ethical Slut 15 years ago that maybe I come from a different vantage point, but surely Paul and Julie did, like, even an ounce of research before agreeing to an open relationship? (Or, rather Covino and Marvin.) The movie chickens out of doing anything interesting with their relationship, because it assumes the audience will happily accept being open as a metaphor instead of something tangible in their lives.
Carey, still wanting to salvage his marriage to Ashley, decides to import the open relationship idea and she agrees. The funniest part of the film is that, to show how okay he is with this arrangement, Carey goes out of his way to befriend each of Ashley's short-term relationships and their apartment because like a sitcom hangout with a twentysomething cornfed bartender, a sensitive chiropractor, a black cowboy-type3, and a lesbian restauranteur.
Just like how being in an open relationship is seen as a punchline, so is the idea of Ashley going through a string of DEI lovers4 although even the vibes here are weird. The lesbian is exploitative, talking about how expendable servers are and how negligible it is to underpay and burn them out; the chiropractor, in a heart to heart with Carey, misreads the situation and goes to kiss him. Obviously, this is to show us, the audience, how endearing Carey is–yet in a world of sharper comedy like Bottoms and Adults, the funnier beat would be the twinky bartender and chiropractor hooking up.
The thing is, if you only saw the first act of the film, you could imagine it happening. The first 30 or so minutes are fun and surprising, including full-frontal male nudity and a bit where after Ashley breaks up with Carey, he literally runs out of the car and traverses land and water to get to Paul and Julie's lake house. While Carey showers, Paul hops in, clothed, to check him for ticks. Those initial scenes promise something more interesting, more relevant than the remaining hour afterwards.
The film ends with the couples getting back together, presumably no longer in open relationships. Paul wins over Julie by admitting he never slept with anyone else and only offered the open relationship because he felt undeserving of a wife as hot as Julie, and thought she would want to be with other (presumably more attractive) men without leaving him. This is enough for Julie, even though prior to this Paul not only ruined their financial stability but also put out loans in their young son's name and went to jail. Oh, also she's been dating Carey seriously. But, why not?
Ashley, having sowed her wild oats, successfully wins Carey back (in part because Julie splits from him) and becomes fulfilled by giving birth to their baby boy. This seemed random and archaic in the cinema, but as I write this I'm realizing Ashley was written as a the kind of character who would name her kid Lakynn. (Having first seen Arjona in Andor, I'm really hoping she finds another role worthy of Bix, because, yikes.)
I get that in screwball comedies the idea is everyone pretty much returns to where they started at the beginning of the film, but the conclusion of Splitsville felt compulsory rather than satisfying. I wish also that on the journey back, side quests to concepts like open relationships and diverse partners weren't treated so shallowly. The film isn't bad, but it feels both late to the game, but also given this new era perhaps right on time?
This could also be a case of misplaced expectations. I've written over 1,000 words and I don't think the film would have got that many words if it weren't heralded as such an instant comedic classic. Maybe the problem is the culture at large, where a film like this can be deemed the funniest film of the year, and having just seen Oh, Mary! with Jinkx Monsoon last month, the bar was probably set far too high in my mind.
[1] I probably should have also thrown in the Materialists, but none of the dialogue from the trailer felt like anything a person would actually say, and having already been burned by Past Lives and Challengers, I am no longer investing in the Celine Song/Justin Kuritkes cinematic universe
[2] Splitsville also suffers from Sitcom Wife syndrome, with Arjona and Johnson ridiculously more attractive than the men, making you wonder in what world these two women can't do better
[3] The film started filming six months after Cowboy Carter came out, but it's still very random
[4] Arjona is of Puerto Rican and Guatemalan descent, and speaks in Spanish with the chiropractor, who is Latino. Ashley is not a typical Latina name, so I'm guessing before Arjona was cast, the joke here was the white girl going wild with "diverse" experiences, blech