Movie Review: The Breakup: A Film Student’s P.O.V. On the New Release

With Hollywood’s power couple taking over most of your tabloid press and entertainment variety news shows, there has been a buzz about this movie since it was reported that there was a case of life imitating art involved. It’s no secret, well, except to the Vaughn and Aniston camps, that these two have been one of the hottest new power couples, but does this translate well onto the big screen?

I’ll admit. Going in, I have my own bias’ going. However, all of the biased aside, I felt that this comedy offered its share of moments and scenes that made you just giggle, or sometimes outright laugh out loud inside the theater. Jennifer Aniston plays Brooke Meyers, a Chicago woman working in an art gallery, who becomes smitten with Vaughn’s character, Gary Grobowski.

Gary is a tour guide in Chicago and is regarded as one of the best and most popular, which actually is lent an etreme amount of credibility by Vaughn’s seemingly off the top delivery. After a fight, they break-up, only to have the dilemma of splitting the condo that they purchased together. You can imagine the types of things that happen between the two of them while trying to resolve the problems. Friendships, personal space, and in some cases, dignity is thrown right out the window.

There are a number of factors that made this movie interesting for me:

1.) There is an undeniable chemistry between Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn. Whether or not it had to do with the couple’s alleged off -screen romance, it has yet to be confirmed. What I can confirm is that the two definitely work well together in this film. The perfect mix of Vince Vaughn quick-wit and fast jabs combined with the very well-timed reactory acting by Aniston most often leave you in a state of shock or laughing.

For her part, Jennifer Aniston really holds her own well against the quick Vaughn and is able to get in a few jabs. It obvious that she’s not up to speed at some moments, but not enough to ruin key moments. She seems to, at times, be genuinely shocked at the barbs delivered by Vaughn, but they really mesh together well.

2.) The supporting cast plays a huge part in this movie. For the most part, Aniston and Vaughn are supported by one of the best casts put together in a long time. Justin Long, who has starred recently in movies such as “Dodgeball” (also starring Vaughn) and the two Jeepers Creepers movies, was brilliant in a different role as a co-worker to Aniston’s character at the art gallery she worked at. Jon Favreau, reunited with his Swingers co-star Vaughn, stole the show for me as his portrayal of his anger-management needing friend Johnny O. Cole Hauser and Vincent D’Onofrio are good as Gary’s brothers Lupus and Dennis. Other supporting actors such as Jason Bateman, Joey Lauren Adams, and Judy Davis also help the story move along. Ann-Margaret even makes an appearance, playing Aniston’s mother.

3.) The ending. I don’t wanna give it away, so I’ll just say that I was pleased with the direction the movie took throughout and in getting to the end that ir arrived at.

I also had a few problems with the movie:

1.) You ever had the friends that are the constantly bickering couple, the ones who fight about everything and are just not mature enough to resolve their issues? They fall into that a little too much at some times in the movie. Not that a lot of the exchanges are funny, but some make you uncomfortably squirmish in your seat and watch, suppressing any kind of reaction at all. For every good argument, there’ll be another that makes you scratch your head.

2.) Production quality was a bit forced. On a few occasions I noticed the shadow of the boom mics in the screen and that really made me pay attention to those little things. They could have done a better job in making sure that small things like that weren’t noticable.

3.) The plot had a couple of open-ended subplots that never really resolved themselves. You could also get confused with all the extra characters if you aren’t as smitten with the great supporting cast as I obviously am.

Those issues being addressed, I have to say that overall it was an entertaining movie that had it’s moments. Vaughn and Aniston portray a couple in severe angst very well, and it’ll be interesting to see what this does for Aniston’s career? It wasn’t exactly a tour-de-force, but she definitely had a good performance.

Couple that with Derailed, and I believe that she’s getting better roles and could be on the verge of a few more good movies. Vaughn is just entertaining, as he usually is. I have to admit that I am a huge Vince Vaughn fan and love all the work he’s done. If you’ve ever been in a bad relationship, this may hash up some memories, but it’ll be worth some of the laughs.