Couples Retreat

Director: Peter Billingsley
Cast: Vince Vaughn, Jon Favreau, Malin Akerman, Kristen Bell and Jean Reno
DVD release: 4 February 2010
Rated: M

Retreat... while you still can

At some stage in the making of Couples Retreat, someone hired an absolute genius. That genius wasn’t an actor or a director; but rather the person who cut the trailer for this confused and rather disjointed film. The trailer makes this look like a laugh riot; the reality sadly falls short of the promise.

The film reunites Swingers stars Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau; but just like their characters here, the film feels a bit tired and flabby around the middle. It’s also an object lesson in why having a team of writers is fraught with danger. Vaughn and Favreau, together with writer Dana Fox all contributed to the script. The result is a blatantly inconsistent screenplay that never really delivers on the potential of its premise.

The script has the dubious distinction of featuring not one, not two but three ‘deus ex machina’ moments. In case you’re not familiar with that term, it happens when a story reaches a point where it’s apparently incapable of resolution; but is then resolved by a convenient or unbelievable turn of events that often appears “out of thin air”. As such, it’s a sign of a very sloppy or lazy screenplay. Well here, there are at least three such moments: one near the beginning of the film and two towards the end. Their presence here robs the script of any real credibility it might have gathered.

Couples Retreat starts with a concept that is sure to turn many males off immediately - couples therapy. We've all been to movies where such therapy forms the basis for some very heavy themes (The Squid and the Whale, for example), so it's clearly crying out for a comedic treatment. Actor-turned-director Peter Billingsley sets the whole thing on an idyllic tropical island (Bora Bora in French Polynesia, it be exact); where the oh-so-serious new-age couples' retreat sits across the bay from the sexy fun of a singles club. He plants four couples at various stages of their relationships into this patchouli-scented hell and unleashes the forces of Deepak Chopra-inspired madness upon them in the form of relationship guru Marcel (Jean Reno).

This could all have been hilarious in the right hands, but the train soon runs off the rails. There's just so much talk, you'd think you were watching one of those serious movies. This means that by the time the rather long-winded climactic scenes arrive, many viewers probably won't much care. In those final scenes, the film becomes just so silly, it just doesn't stand up to any kind of scrutiny. The ending itself is very sappy and quite unbelievable.

The whole concept (and indeed, some of the scenes themselves) seems to borrow heavily from other movies, including Along Came Polly and The Break-Up. These derivative aspects certainly water down the film's impact, as there's always that feeling that you've seen it all before.

Now, I could have put up with all of that if the film was funny, but it misses the mark there too. Although there are some humorous lines and the usual sight gags, the majority of the film involves dialogue, and most of it not very funny. You'd think guys renowned for their comedy could come up with something better than this.

Despite the presence of Favreau and Vaughn, the film is basically carried by Jason Bateman as the tightly-wound Jason and Kristen Bell as his long-suffering wife Cynthia. Both Bateman and Bell try hard, but their comic chops (something we know both possess) are somehow missing here. Favreau seems to be phoning in his role as the oafish Joey; while Vaughn is a bit more restrained than we're used to seeing him as the only happily-married of the men, Dave. Kristin Davis, Faizon Love and Kali Hawk gets precious little change from their roles as the remainder of the group; with only Malin Akerman delivering an amiable performance as Ronnie, Dave's wife. Jean Reno has some decent moments as the love guru without really being grotesque enough to be truly memorable.

While it promised much, Couples Retreat actually delivers very little. It's not all that funny, it's cliched and lacks zest. An exercise in derivative and formulaic filmmaking, it's a minor diversion at best.

David Edwards