Splitsville

Bluesky

There’s a surprising number of films out there called Splitsville. Only one of them has, to date, had any real success – the 1999 comedy which takes its story in a distinctive direction, focusing on kids. This suggests that a lot of adults think there’s innate comedic or dramatic potential in divorce which looks less obvious in the cold light of day. Billed as ‘the funniest film of the year’, this joins Is This Thing On? in the ranks of ego-driven compensation projects which make driving to Asda in a Ferrari, digging your own swimming pool in the garden by hand or dating somebody younger than your kids look like a sensible response to a break-up.

It should come as no surprise that the film is written by its male stars (Kyle Marvin as Carey and Michael Angelo Covino as Paul); nor that each of them starts out attached to a woman who is plainly out of his league (respectively, Adria Ajona’s Ashley and Dakota Johnson’s Julie). Carey and Ashley’s marriage has been running on empty for some time and it makes complete sense that Ashley would ask for a divorce. In a panic, Carey tries to come up with a compromise, and learns that his friends have an apparently happy open marriage. Reassured that they are only talking about no-strings sex, and have a mutual disdain for the emotional honesty involved in polyamory, she agrees to give it a try. Of course, they haven’t thought it through, and of course, there’s no obvious benefit to her that she couldn’t get by leaving – something the film continually strains to obscure – but successful marriages and comedies have been built on less.

The problem with (this) Splitsville is that its creators expect comedy to flow naturally from a wacky central situation which is actually just not that unusual anymore – if indeed it ever was. They also expect us to care about characters who never undergo any development and never have any particularity about them. It’s hard to care about a film when those involved don’t appear to have done so themselves. It doesn’t help that one of the few distinctive threads the film develops is a string of jokes about the deaths of pet fish. These are not about the sort of horror or social awkwardness comedy that sees characters pushed into extreme positions where they don’t know how to cope. It’s something much more trivialised, which is unpleasant to watch given the widespread ignorance about fish care. Even the awareness that it’s simulated doesn’t make animal cruelty entertaining.

The central plot finds its crisis point in Carey and Ashley’s failure to discuss what to do if one of them sleeps with somebody the other one knows. Again, there’s a potential social awkwardness here which might yield something real, but it’s approached in the most vapid way possible. Adding to the problem is the fact that most of the jealousy comes from Carey’s side, which seems unfair given that Ashley initially suggested that she just leave – it’s not clear why he feels that she owes him something. It gradually emerges that he’s a terrible partner in all sorts of other ways which make one wonder what she was doing there to begin with. His attitude to money alone would be a giant red flag for many people.

When one can’t root for the couple to be together, there’s no tension involved in he prospect of them breaking up, so all that remains is a collection of underdeveloped jokes about sexual insecurity which further highlight how shallow these people are. Their own relationship seems distinguished from others only by their sense of mutual entitlement and shared ownership of stuff. There’s a last minute effort to convince us they’ve learned something which feels like a pasted-on kids’ TV moral moment. Otherwise this is half-hearted TV movie stuff trying way too hard to impress.

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