As the second adult sex comedy to be released in less than a month,
The Heartbreak Kid is easily superior to September's
Good Luck Chuck in just about every way imaginable. Oddly enough, at the same time, it is also the more disappointing of the two films. Allow me to explain.
Chuck was dead in the water almost as soon as the studio logo faded out, and only got worse from then on.
The Heartbreak Kid is a movie that holds an uproarious first hour, then slowly becomes a victim of moronic plotting, which turns previously likable characters into people we not only just don't care about, but flat-out despise. The film is roughly two hours long, with each hour being devoted to the stuff that works and the stuff that doesn't. It's like watching two short films about the same people. I liked the first film better.
Life-long bachelor Eddie Cantrow (Ben Stiller) has decided it's time to finally settle down with a woman after being publically humiliated at a former girlfriend's wedding to another man. He thinks he's finally found the right girl when he meets Lila (Malin Akerman). The two hit it off right away, and almost instantly, his best friend (Rob Corddry) and sex-obsessed father (Jerry Stiller) are pushing the guy to seal the deal and marry her. Eddie has only known Lila for six weeks, but feels she's the one, so he pops the question and before he knows it, he's driving with her to Mexico for a romantic honeymoon. It is during this time that Lila's true personality reveals itself, and Eddie begins to question just what he's gotten himself into. She's loud, she's obnoxious, she has a history of cocaine use, she treats sex as if it were a violent physical contact sport, and she obviously flunked basic elementary math, as when she sees an elderly married couple, she tells her new husband that's going to be them in 10 years. As Eddie flounders about the Mexican resort, doing his best to keep out of his wife's sight, he happens upon another lovely young woman named Miranda (Michelle Monaghan). The connection here is even stronger than the one he initially felt with Lila, and now Eddie is trapped in a seemingly impossible situation to not only find a way to admit his feelings to Miranda, but to also tell her the truth about why he's at this resort in the first place.
After years of experimenting with romantic comedies and offbeat yet sweet films like
Fever Pitch and
Stuck on You, filmmaking siblings Peter and Bobby Farrelly, return to the more unpredictable raunchy humor that made them famous in their earlier efforts like
There's Something About Mary with
The Heartbreak Kid. Though I enjoyed their past few films, I did have a silent desire that they would one day return to the type of humor they specialize in, so I was looking forward to this movie. For the first hour, the movie does not disappoint. It creates a very likable and sympathetic character in Eddie. The humiliation he encounters during the film's opening wedding scene is generally funny without being overblown or mean spirited. (He's forced to sit at the "singles table", which is comprised entirely out of kids. And when his former girlfriend makes her wedding speech to the crowd of family and friends, she keeps on taking not-so hidden jabs at her past relationship with Eddie.) Things continue to build with the initial romantic scenes between Eddie and Lila also have a certain sweetness to them. The film treats them as a serious couple, not as a joke, except for one pratfall that occurs while they're bike riding. Of course, we've seen the film's ad campaign, which gives away the fact that Lila turns out to be the wife from Hell. I was still laughing here, because there is a certain level of intelligence behind the crude sex jokes. The dialogue is funny and sharp, and I found myself laughing out loud numerous times in a way that only a great comedy can do.
Slowly, but surely, things start to go wrong. You can see it happening, and I wanted to believe that the movie would pull through and avoid painting itself into a corner. But paint itself into a corner, it does. Boy, does it ever. It all starts with the introduction of the Miranda character, and Eddie having to lie to her continuously and be faced with a series of misunderstandings in order to keep his marriage a secret. I have no doubt this material could work, but this movie handles it all wrong. It turns into an endless series of contrived circumstances, forces the previously likable lead character to turn into a selfish and immature idiot, and basically burns all the good will that the movie had created with me up to that point. It's tolerable at first and I still found myself smiling a lot, but then the movie just keeps on making him dumber with each passing scene, and forces him to do hurtful things to others that we can't picture the guy doing during the first half. Eddie takes a total about-face, and so does the film itself. I still laughed from time to time, but they weren't as big as before, and there were a lot more moments where I found myself watching the screen with relative disinterest.
Looking back on
The Heartbreak Kid, I find myself asking what went wrong? Here is a movie that seemingly has it all during its first half. The cast is bright and funny, the energy level is high, and the laughs are consistent. The cast and the energy hold onto their charms when the film starts to falter, which saves the entire experience from being too depressing. It's just that the laughs become scarcer, the characters become unrecognizable, and the script becomes desperate, including a lengthy and pointless sequence concerning illegal immigrants in the third act that never really builds to anything. One look at the film's screenplay credits may give a hint as to what went wrong here. Aside from the Farrelly Brothers, there are three other screen writers credited, for a grand total of five. Throw in the original screenplay credits (this film is a loose remake of a 1972 comedy starring Charles Grodin), and you have one of the longest screenplay credits in recent memory. This is obviously a case of too many chefs spoiling a recipe. Everyone added their own contributions, but not everyone was obviously working on the same page. The end result is a screenplay that goes from extreme highs to extreme lows at a moment's notice.
Do I regret seeing
The Heartbreak Kid? Not at all. There is quite a lot to like here, it just can't overcome its own fractured tone. I can imagine this would make an ideal rental, as it seems to be the kind of movie DVDs were invented for. You can watch the scenes that you like, show them to friends, and filter out the stuff that doesn't work. If the film had managed to keep up the laughs of the first hour, this probably would have ended up challenging
Hot Fuzz for the spot as my favorite comedy of the year so far. As it stands,
The Heartbreak Kid is a noble effort that ends up selling itself short.
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As the second adult sex comedy to be released in less than a month, The Heartbreak Kid is easily superior to September's Good Luck Chuck in just about every way imaginable. Oddly enough, at the same time, it is also the more disappointing of the two films. Allow me to explain. Chuck was dead in the water almost as soon as the studio logo faded out, and only got worse from then on. The Heartbreak Kid is a movie that holds an uproarious first hour, then slowly becomes a victim of moronic plotting, which turns previously likable characters into people we not only just don't care about, but flat-out despise. The film is roughly two hours long, with each hour being devoted to the stuff that works and the stuff that doesn't. It's like watching two short films about the same people. I liked the first film better.
Life-long bachelor Eddie Cantrow (Ben Stiller) has decided it's time to finally settle down with a woman after being publically humiliated at a former girlfriend's wedding to another man. He thinks he's finally found the right girl when he meets Lila (Malin Akerman). The two hit it off right away, and almost instantly, his best friend (Rob Corddry) and sex-obsessed father (Jerry Stiller) are pushing the guy to seal the deal and marry her. Eddie has only known Lila for six weeks, but feels she's the one, so he pops the question and before he knows it, he's driving with her to Mexico for a romantic honeymoon. It is during this time that Lila's true personality reveals itself, and Eddie begins to question just what he's gotten himself into. She's loud, she's obnoxious, she has a history of cocaine use, she treats sex as if it were a violent physical contact sport, and she obviously flunked basic elementary math, as when she sees an elderly married couple, she tells her new husband that's going to be them in 10 years. As Eddie flounders about the Mexican resort, doing his best to keep out of his wife's sight, he happens upon another lovely young woman named Miranda (Michelle Monaghan). The connection here is even stronger than the one he initially felt with Lila, and now Eddie is trapped in a seemingly impossible situation to not only find a way to admit his feelings to Miranda, but to also tell her the truth about why he's at this resort in the first place.
After years of experimenting with romantic comedies and offbeat yet sweet films like Fever Pitch and Stuck on You, filmmaking siblings Peter and Bobby Farrelly, return to the more unpredictable raunchy humor that made them famous in their earlier efforts like There's Something About Mary with The Heartbreak Kid. Though I enjoyed their past few films, I did have a silent desire that they would one day return to the type of humor they specialize in, so I was looking forward to this movie. For the first hour, the movie does not disappoint. It creates a very likable and sympathetic character in Eddie. The humiliation he encounters during the film's opening wedding scene is generally funny without being overblown or mean spirited. (He's forced to sit at the "singles table", which is comprised entirely out of kids. And when his former girlfriend makes her wedding speech to the crowd of family and friends, she keeps on taking not-so hidden jabs at her past relationship with Eddie.) Things continue to build with the initial romantic scenes between Eddie and Lila also have a certain sweetness to them. The film treats them as a serious couple, not as a joke, except for one pratfall that occurs while they're bike riding. Of course, we've seen the film's ad campaign, which gives away the fact that Lila turns out to be the wife from Hell. I was still laughing here, because there is a certain level of intelligence behind the crude sex jokes. The dialogue is funny and sharp, and I found myself laughing out loud numerous times in a way that only a great comedy can do.
Slowly, but surely, things start to go wrong. You can see it happening, and I wanted to believe that the movie would pull through and avoid painting itself into a corner. But paint itself into a corner, it does. Boy, does it ever. It all starts with the introduction of the Miranda character, and Eddie having to lie to her continuously and be faced with a series of misunderstandings in order to keep his marriage a secret. I have no doubt this material could work, but this movie handles it all wrong. It turns into an endless series of contrived circumstances, forces the previously likable lead character to turn into a selfish and immature idiot, and basically burns all the good will that the movie had created with me up to that point. It's tolerable at first and I still found myself smiling a lot, but then the movie just keeps on making him dumber with each passing scene, and forces him to do hurtful things to others that we can't picture the guy doing during the first half. Eddie takes a total about-face, and so does the film itself. I still laughed from time to time, but they weren't as big as before, and there were a lot more moments where I found myself watching the screen with relative disinterest.
Looking back on The Heartbreak Kid, I find myself asking what went wrong? Here is a movie that seemingly has it all during its first half. The cast is bright and funny, the energy level is high, and the laughs are consistent. The cast and the energy hold onto their charms when the film starts to falter, which saves the entire experience from being too depressing. It's just that the laughs become scarcer, the characters become unrecognizable, and the script becomes desperate, including a lengthy and pointless sequence concerning illegal immigrants in the third act that never really builds to anything. One look at the film's screenplay credits may give a hint as to what went wrong here. Aside from the Farrelly Brothers, there are three other screen writers credited, for a grand total of five. Throw in the original screenplay credits (this film is a loose remake of a 1972 comedy starring Charles Grodin), and you have one of the longest screenplay credits in recent memory. This is obviously a case of too many chefs spoiling a recipe. Everyone added their own contributions, but not everyone was obviously working on the same page. The end result is a screenplay that goes from extreme highs to extreme lows at a moment's notice.
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