Following her very public break-up with Brad Pitt, the tear-stained Jennifer Aniston bravely went off to Chicago to film the unfortunately titled The Break-Up, about a couple who decide to call it quits.
Happily for Aniston, the title dealt only with the characters in the movie. For although she and co-star Vince Vaughn play characters who wage war on one another while still living in the same condo apartment, in real life -- and much to very loud protests from both actors at the start that it wasn't so (and now, simply refusal to comment) -- they apparently became a couple.
That's just the start of the good news for Aniston, who became a beloved star on the TV series Friends, but couldn't quite reach the same kind of stardom in movies despite a slew of films and more than a few good reviews. The Break-Up might finally do it for her, a funny, knowing movie about the perils of letting deep-seated feelings spill out and then fester into gaping wounds that can poison a relationship.
It's a film that gets its payoff from the good will of the actors, their whip-snap sense of comic timing, their remarkable chemistry and especially Vaughn's bear-like Gary Grobowski, a rumpled child-man who would rather lie on the couch to watch sports or play video games than attend to the emotional needs of his partner, Aniston's Brooke Meyers.
Because we like these characters and understand them, one tends to overlook the fact that they seem to have nothing in common. She keeps a neat house. He's a slob who'd toss his clothes in a heap. She likes to prepare fancy dinners. He'd just as soon have a hot dog at the ball park, as long as it's the Cubs who are playing. She sells pricey art in a tony gallery. He is the popular and personable head guide on the Chicago tour bus company he owns with his brothers. They are, indeed the Odd Couple, something that eventually sends them spinning off into crisis, created when long-simmering angers boil to the surface.
Soon they've split up, yet remain in the same condo they've purchased together and love. She commandeers the bedroom. He takes over the living room, with its sofa bed.
Neither wants to give in or even seek a compromise. The feud only escalates, threatening to tear apart even their longstanding bowling team and their friends.
The Break-Up is a chick flick, but it gives equal time to both sides. Guys will appreciate Vaughn's booming personality and full-speed-ahead reaction to every situation. Sometimes he's a little hard to take, though. At the start of the film Gary picks up Brooke at a Cubs ballgame, but so aggressively -- she's with another man -- that he'd seem dangerous, or at least deranged, if he weren't also so funny. Vaughn, the funniest element in last summer's Wedding Crashers, uses his manic delivery to steamroller home the pointed barbs that Gary fires.
There's a lot of funny stuff for him in the script by Jeremy Garelick and Jay Lavender, whose main story idea was hatched by Vaughn himself, who also is the film's co-producer. Vaughn obviously knows what works for him and gets to play off a half dozen other offbeat characters. These include Brooke's fey brother, Richard (John Michael Higgins), proud of singing in an a capella men's choir, The Tone Rangers. Richard's attempts to turn a dinner party into a group harmony singalong, with a reluctant Gary seated at the head of the table and a forgiving Ann-Margret as Brooke's mother nearby, is wonderfully wacky.
But although The Break-Up has several such offbeat moments, at heart there's a great deal of sympathy developed for its characters and the quicksand situation into which they sink deeper and deeper. Couples who are in a difficult stretch in their relationships might find the film hitting too close to home, or it may just spur them to talk about their issues. Funny as it is, The Break-Up is a lot more than a laugh fest that can be easily left behind when you leave the theater.
Aniston plays the victim, but Brooke is feisty enough to take aim at Gary's pigheadedness and doesn't come off as a woman who is beaten down. She takes advice from best girlfriend, Addie (Joey Lauren Adams), and her imperious boss, played with delicious waspishness by Judy Davis as the Queen Bee of the art world. Their plans result in several amusing failures for Brooke in attempts to make Gary jealous.
Meanwhile, Gary is taking counsel from his bar buddy Johnny O (Jon Favreau), who comes up with a strong-arm solution to every problem. Vaughn and Favreau have a hilarious scene in which Johnny O offers to get some guys he knows to eliminate Brooke's latest male friend. Gary protests, sincerely, that he doesn't want any such thing to happen. But Johnny O thinks it's all a ruse to deflect fingerpointing when the dirty deed is finally done.
There's also a very funny scene in which Jason Bateman, as Brooke's and Gary's realtor pal, tries to convince them to let him sell their beloved condo for them, painting it as the only solution to their predicament. He'll even go without his commission as an act of friendship, he says, before adding, if only he could. It's a beautifully laid-out scene that takes a pointed look at which comes first: business or friendship?
Director Peyton Reed (Bring It On, Down With Love) keeps The Break-Up roaring ahead at full steam, but knows when to pause to work on the poignancy which gives the film a touching quality late in the game. The best thing about The Break-Up, however, is how the script doesn't opt for the easy way out. There are several instances when the writers could have gone for a quick, crowd-pleasing solution, something that the likeable characters seem to deserve. That they don't is to the credit of the writers. They surprise and startle us. The Break-Up plays more like real life, warts and bumps in the road and all.
mjanuson@projo.com / 401-277-7276
****
The Break-Up
Starring: Vince Vaughn, Jennifer Aniston, Joey Lauren Adams, Jon Favreau, Jason Bateman, Judy Davis, Justin Long, John Michael Higgins, Ann-Margret.
Rated: PG-13, contains violence, profanity, nudity, adult themes.
ARTICLE TOOLS: 
