The Break-Up

Peyton Reed (Bring It On, Down With Love) directs The Break-Up, the 2006 Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn vehicle that stirred up a lot of talk for what was going on behind the scenes. The film’s biggest difficulty with audiences and critics appears to be based around a huge case of mishandled marketing. I’m sure many people went to see this film based on the “real life” couple of Aniston and Vaughn (at the time, anyway) and were expecting a romantic tale about how a couple breaks up and then subsequently gets back together. Throw in a little bit of slapstick and some toilet humor and you’ve got yourself a crowd pleaser. Sadly for audiences and, ironically or not, happily for me, The Break-Up isn’t about that at all.

Reed’s film is effectively about communication. Jennifer Aniston plays Brooke and Vince Vaughn plays Gary. The opening scenes of the film show their meeting, as Gary flirts with Brooke at a baseball game. As the opening credits roll, we are treated to the growth of their relationship in the form of photos and shots. Eventually, we cut to a scene and they are obviously living together (not married). The couple lives in a plush, fairly large apartment and appear to be rather sociable, always surrounded by friends and family. Scenes with dinner parties and “game nights” follow and we get a good idea about how the couple has melded together with their friends and family. Gary’s friends become Brooke’s friends and vice versa. It is the normative coming-together of two people in a modern relationship.

Then things change. Conflict begins over what conflict usually begins over and Gary and Brooke suddenly find themselves hurling insults at one another and right smack dab in the middle of a prototypical break-up. But what to do with the luxurious condo? They both paid for it and they both clearly feel some stake in the matter, so the resourceful but blissfully ignorant couple assumes they can make it work and somehow split the joint. Gary takes the living room with the TV and gets the pool table he always wanted, while Brooke takes the bedroom.

The Break-Up uses dialogue and relationships to guide the story, creating situations out of logical actions out of scorned lovers instead of reaching for hyperbolic comedic setups. I guess that was the problem for many people, as today’s cinema crowd appears to want more bang for their buck. In the performances of Vaughn and Aniston, however, I saw some of Hollywood’s finest stars of old: Vaughn as the oafish ignorant male lead and Aniston as the scorned lover with poor communication skills. Both performances created a believability in the relationship and a hopefulness in their utter damned despair, beautifully clothing the reality of adult relationships with mature dialogue and witty, sharp comedic writing. For the script alone, The Break-Up is a treat.

It seems, upon looking at much of the criticism and discussion about the film, that more people are concerned with Jennifer Aniston’s “nude scene” and the plethora of other behind-the-scenes gossip than they are with the smart quick-witted writing and spot-on performances. It’s too bad, too, because I think that The Break-Up is a gem of a film. Like Closer, this film takes a decidedly adult look at relationships and their dissection. It penetrates the normative Hollywood view of relationships being “fairy tales” and purposely aims for realism and substance, making the focal point of the film the crumbling foundations of human relationships instead of cutesy Hollywood schlock.

I truly hope that people watch this film as a film and not as a Hollywood gossip piece. I also hope that people ditch their preconceived notions and, instead, watch the film for what it is. It is a serious, anxious, perplexing look at how people communicate and, better still, how people communicate with one another when they really don’t want to communicate with one another. The truth of the film is not only how a break-up of such a relationship can change the parties of the relationship, but how the emotions involved can impact the other relationships in life. The scenes involving Vaughn and Aniston’s family, friends and workplaces are especially telling as to Reed’s desire to show the broad impact of this break-up.

So if you’re looking for a well-written film about relationships and communication that treats its audience intelligently and with maturity, watch The Break-Up. If you’re looking for Vaughn and Aniston to tell a goofy, silly, sweaty love story, watch something else. But please, please, please, please don’t critique this film because it’s not what you were expecting. It’s a good film and it deserves better than to speculate as to what brand-name jeans Jennifer Aniston was wearing or when Vince Vaughn was going to be “funny”.

7/10

Trailer: