Couples Retreat Film Review
This Comedy is Essentially a Series of One-Liners that Fall Flat
Nov 11, 2009
Throw in some of the funniest actors in the business and toss them into a lush island paradise. Sounds like a recipe for film success, correct? Unfortunately, Couples Retreat is essentially a series of one-liners that fall flat spending most of the time spouting dull material about relationships. The film explores the success and failures of married life, getting older, and leaving the singles life behind.
Not Your Typical Vacation
Jason Bateman plays Jason, a testicular cancer survivor who is having trouble conceiving a child with his wife Cynthia (Kristen Bell). This has put a strain on their marriage and the two decide to take a trip to West Eden, an exotic island resort that caters to relationship repair. Short on cash, they enlist help from their friends to offset the cost through a group rate: the textbook family Dave (Vince Vaughn) and Ronnie (Malin Akerman), Joey (Jon Favreau) and Lucy (Kristen Davis), who are counting the hours until there daughter goes to college so they can call it quits, and the recently divorced Shane (Faizon Love) and his 20-year-old girlfriend Trudy (Kali Hawk). The three couples agree to attend with the understanding they can bypass the relationship building activities and participate in the fun stuff, but what they don't realize is they will have their relationships examined and criticized as well.
Failed Recipe for Success
What is more disappointing, Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau star in this mediocre comedy or the fact they wrote it? Favreau wrote and both starred in the cult classic Swingers and Made, and Vaughn wrote and both starred in the unappreciated The Break-Up. So combining their comedic minds to write and star should produce a hilarious comedy, right? Vaughn's career has been going downhill ever since The Break-Up, bringing other successful actors down to his level: Paul Giamatti in Fred Claus and Reese Witherspoon in Four Christmases. At least, Favreau has the Iron Man franchise to fall back on after this below-average attempt at comedy. Where does Vaughn go from here after three failed comedies?
The film may have stretched itself to far by focusing on four couples. With four couples, there is a visible effort to give everyone enough screen time. What made Forgetting Sarah Marshall a huge success, besides the far superior comedy, is the focus on one failed relationship, instead of four. The film does do a great job of explaining the back stories for the characters involved within the opening moments, but doesn't convince the audience of the evolution the couples go through while on vacation.
The highlight of the film is the location. Filmed on location on the beautiful island of Bora Bora, the film benefits from the crystal blue waters, lush island greenery, and luxury living. What a great excuse to make such a mediocre film by spending downtime at this lovely island paradise. Clint Eastwood would have starred in this poorly written film if it meant six weeks of luxury and pampering.
Final Thoughts
Couples Retreat could have benefited from an R-rating giving the film a more adult edge like Wedding Crashers and Forgetting Sarah Marshall. The film does not throw any punches with its storyline in fear of wavering from its basic and predictable premise. At some moments, the film seems slanted toward a older crowd, but then does a 360 and throws in a gross out moment meant for a straight-to-DVD film of American Pie. The couples problems were not believable and the juvenile banter among the characters didn't help the problem.
