Column:
'Couples Retreat' is a blockbuster snore
Published Oct. 16, 2009
Topping the box office this week is Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau's latest comedic collaboration, "Couples Retreat." Vaughn and Favreau share the screen time and the writing credit once again, but this time the directorial helm was handed over to long time friend and former child-star Peter Billingsley, aka that kid from "A Christmas Story."
Billingsley is not the only friend Vaughn and Favreau brought along, with Jason Bateman, Kristen Bell and Malin Akerman adding to the jovial ensemble cast. Unfortunately, "Couples Retreat" proves to be nothing more than a happy cast, an island backdrop and a yawn-inducing script.
In "Couples Retreat" Vaughn, Bateman and Favreau play Dave, Jason and Joey, the patriarchs of three relatively dysfunctional families. Dave is distant, Jason is controlling and Joey is constantly toeing the line between flirting with the opposite sex and outright cheating. At Jason's behest, the gang and their wives (Akerman, Bell and Kristin Davis) embark on a fun-filled trip to Eden, a couples' resort in Bora-Bora. More than simple island fun is on Eden's menu though, when the group finds themselves in mandatory marriage counseling.
"Couples Retreat" has a few things working for it. The likeability of the cast and the island locale work for the film, but the script does all but hang together. Although the film does flow relatively well between its multiple storylines, the script never seems to decide whether it wants to be a real commentary on love and marriage or simply a ridiculous situational comedy.
The script blatantly tells the audience the characters have learned their lesson, but the nature of the film keeps the viewers from truly seeing the evolution of the characters into the couples they are supposed to be.
More than anything, "Couples Retreat" brings us nothing we have not seen before. The ideas of an arrogant husband often fighting with the wife he ultimately loves, a woman who wants to end her relationship for all the right reasons or a quip slinging, relatively good, but ultimately conflicted men are all things we have seen before.
Not to mention we've seen the same tropes from these very actors before. Favreau honed his bravado in "I Love You, Man," Bell has righteously quashed a relationship in "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" and Vaughn has spit out deliriously dizzying speeches in nearly every movie of which he has taken part. Although the starring actors are clearly phony in their performances, the supporting cast sold their goofy roles, providing some of the only laugh out loud moments. Peter Serafinowicz's smooth-voiced, "Guitar Hero"-loving Sctanley and Jean Reno's super-Zen marriage counselor are a few of the fun side characters who remain thoroughly underutilized. The background actors added a great amount of humor to the film, but unfortunately they only added to the silly humor already provided by the main characters.
Ultimately, Billingsley and co. did not really know what made their film funny, overusing what they thought was working and throwing aside what truly did. The result is "Couples Retreat," a forgettable, annoyingly light-hearted movie that simply runs too smooth to be of any note, leaving the audience wondering if the entire movie was simply a ploy for the actors to vacation in Bora-Bora.
