‘Splitsville’ Movie Review: Annoying Marriage-Go-Round Farce Still Brings The Funny
Photo from Neon
From Jeremy Kibler
Americans rarely nail French farce, but Splitsville gives it another awkward shot. Fidelity, monogamy, and audience patience are all tested in this unlikable but fitfully funny arthouse screwball-comedy copulating with a relationship drama. Writer-director Michael Angelo Covino and co-writer Kyle Marvin (both starring, of course) want their film about modern marriage—and their four characters—to have its cake, eat it, and sleep with other cakes, too. There’s no finger-wagging judgment toward open relationships here, however, eventually, you wish everyone just dated themselves. This is a provocative topic ready to be interrogated, even in a comedy, but what Splitsville lacks in insight is made up for in stupid, absurdist laughs.
At the film’s start, school gym teacher Carey (Marvin) and life coach Ashley (Adria Arjona), who have been married for 14 months, are driving to stay with wealthy friends at their waterfront house in the Hamptons. During their eventful drive, Ashley comes clean: she has been unfaithful and she wants a divorce. Carey flees from the situation—and the car—and makes it on foot to the home of best friend Paul (Covino), a real estate developer, and his wife, Julie (Dakota Johnson), a ceramic artist, along with their troublemaking son (Simon Webster) in tow. Paul and Julie do their best to comfort Carey, until they casually tell him that they’re in an open marriage. When Paul goes out of town for the night on business, Carey and Julie have sex. As the arrangement goes, Paul should theoretically not mind, but things get super complicated and bed-hoppy from there.
Michael Angelo Covino and Kyle Marvin, best friends in real life, have re-teamed since The Climb, a 2020 indie about a dysfunctional male friendship and betrayal in a marriage. Some of that seeps into the marriage-go-round proceedings of Splitsville, although the guys’ script is equally as sharply observed as it is annoying in its dizzying musical-bed convolutions. To be fair, it manages to still be zippy and purely funny as a (surprisingly sexless) sex farce, but the film rings emotionally hollow. Even before the halfway point, you’ll be wanting these man babies and their wives to actually split and sort their shit out.
Perhaps chaos is a feature, but Splitsville induces whiplash early and often, swinging erratically in tone from grounded to broad. In the opening scene, Ashley proceeds to pleasure Carey while he’s driving. This leads to a drunk driver on the road (with his wife in the passenger’s seat) getting distracted and rolling their minivan. The wife doesn’t make it in spite of Ashley’s CPR attempts, followed by the sight of Carey’s penis still hanging out of his pants. That’s the catalyst for Ashley deciding to come clean about her unfaithfulness and not feeling fulfilled.
Marvin is capable of making Carey more endearing than irritating as a schlubby Everyman; he’s a little clueless but always sincere and well-intentioned. Covino, however, takes one for the team by playing Paul as more of a smug, abrasive asshole. Ashley and Julie are the ones who make the decisions that move the plot along. Feeling the most fully drawn and recognizably human, Dakota Johnson gets to be effortlessly cool, beguiling, and sympathetic even when Julie makes mistakes. Adria Arjona (Hit Man) has such a captivating screen presence and well-honed comedic timing in spite of Ashley being so frustratingly fickle and not actually knowing what she wants. In bit roles, Charlie Gillespie and Nicholas Braun are each a hoot as two of Ashley’s lovers, respectively, a bartending himbo and a child’s birthday party mentalist.
Again, there is funny stuff here. All in the name of jealousy, an infantile physical brawl breaks out between Carey and Paul, who first complains about a red-wine stain on his $25,000 rug, and there is so much over-the-top destruction. It’s protracted, going on for several minutes, but also ludicrously funny and impressive that these actors performed their own stunts. Knives are off limits, but a fish tank isn’t, until they begin filling a bathtub to save the fish (but not a poisonous one!). Spoiler alert: the dining room table and floor-to-ceiling window do not make it. There is a hilarious (and dark, if you’re a goldfish owner) sight gag on a roller coaster, and that’s all that will be said about that. A sly Vanilla Sky references also makes its way into the dialogue, as does a delightfully random viewing party of Lorenzo’s Oil.
For a low-budget comedy, cinematography Adam Newport-Berra shoots it beautifully with real texture. There is some arresting camerawork, including a lot of long takes, and playful edits. In one fluidly staged montage that makes efficient use of its time, all of Ashley’s lovers turned ex-lovers come and go, and then come and stay, in Ashley and Carey’s apartment, only to hang out with Carey to play air hockey or for a movie night.
Splitsville prides itself on being “an unromantic comedy,” but to what end? When the whole situation becomes so strained and tiresome, Julie goes, “This is exhausting. What’s it going to take for this to stop?” Our sentiments exactly.
Rating: 2.5/5
Splitsville is currently in theaters.
