Men talk about this a lot: The ultimate betrayal a man can make of his male friend is to have sex with that man’s wife or girlfriend. Some men undoubtedly would prefer to be murdered by their best friend than be cuckolded by them. Why is this so, and why does no one talk about the equivalent thing among women? I doubt many women would be happy to find their best friend in bed with their man.
Anyway, what would be the ending of many a male friendship is a starting point for Michael Angelo Covino and Kyle Marvin, two best friends and filmmaking partners who keep making comedies about this very scenario. In The Climb, Covino portrays a guy who steals away his best friend’s fiancée (with Marvin portraying the best friend), and in Splitsville the roles are reversed. This movie comes to us the same week as The Threesome, another comedy about a messy romantic situation, and while that film has some worthy qualities, Covino and Marvin’s movie is much the better one.
Marvin portrays Carey, who has been married to Ashley (Adria Arjona) for 14 months. When her attempt to have sex with him while he’s driving results in a traffic fatality, a shell-shocked Ashley admits that she’s miserable in the marriage, has cheated on him, and wants a divorce. Carey reacts by running through the wilderness until he reaches the mansion of his best friend Paul (Covino) and Paul’s wife Julie (Dakota Johnson). His story of his marriage’s breakup induces Paul and Julie to admit that they have an open marriage so that infidelity won’t be a dealbreaker. Paul gives Carey explicit permission to have sex with Julie, and so Carey and Julie do it that night.
What follows is one of the great comic fight sequences in movie history. After Carey informs Paul about the sex, Paul’s immediate response is to try to stab him, bludgeon him, drown him, and set him on fire. The fact that neither of these men knows how to fight only results in greater damage to themselves, Paul’s house, and the very expensive furniture within. The struggle includes an enforced break after Paul accidentally breaks his son’s goldfish tank and the two men have to save the fish’s lives. When Julie arrives home and finds the two men rolling around on the ground, she cluelessly asks, “What are you guys doing?”
Even more chaos ensues after this, and the script carefully tracks the fallout. Carey continues to live with Ashley, and there’s a magnificent tracking shot made to look like one take as Carey befriends all of Ashley’s new lovers — these include a struggling musician (Charlie Gillespie), a New Age healer (David Castañeda), a catering chef (Nahéma Ricci), and a country music promoter (O-T Fagbenle) — and invites them all to live in his and Ashley’s house while he helps them find jobs and straighten out their lives. This annoys Ashley to the point that she considers having sex with Paul so they can both get back at their exes. He declines, but he starts dating a woman named Carey (Jessika Mathurin) who looks and dresses exactly like Julie. Weirdest of all, male Carey starts parenting Paul and Julie’s son Russ (Simon Webster) and going to the boy’s parent-teacher conferences to discuss why the kid is committing grand theft.
Covino and Marvin’s comic writing make for a number of set pieces, as when the next-door neighbor accuses Russ of stealing his Jet-Ski. (Carey: “Your Jet-Ski is right here!” Neighbor: “It’s my other Jet-Ski!”) The hackneyed line “You look like shit,” elicits an inspired comeback: “I am like shit.” While apologizing for failing to kill Carey, Paul says, “It wasn’t my fault. My soul left my body. Like I was a werewolf.” The whole plot turns out to be driven by Paul’s insecurities, as he reveals he opened up the marriage because he felt insecure about Julie being better-looking than him, and eventually goes to prison for financial fraud that he’s committing to maintain Julie in their mansion. The director doesn’t let the farcical energy flag during this film’s 100 minutes, something that could easily be overlooked given how heavily his movies lean on their dialogue and acting.
Between this and Materialists, Johnson has now starred in two highly unconventional romantic comedies this summer, and people are touting these as anti-romances. I don’t think they are — these films don’t tell us that love is impossible or delusional or a cynical idea foisted on us by large corporations. (If you do want an anti-romantic film, Together is a pretty good example of one.) These films just address the complications that love can take in ways that feel fresh. So it must be if romantic comedies are to stay relevant. The makers of Splitsville are doing their part, and bless them for it.
Splitsville
Starring Adria Arjona, Michael Angelo Covino, Dakota Johnson, and Kyle Marvin. Directed by Michael Angelo Covino. Written by Michael Angelo Covino and Kyle Marvin. Rated R.
