You can see why Couples Retreat had such a massive $35 million opening weekend in the US. After all, a film featuring Vince Vaughn, Jason Bateman, Jon Favreau, Kristen Bell, Kristin Davis, Jean Reno and Peter Serafinowicz has to be good, doesn’t it? Favreau and Vaughn even co-wrote the script, and you’d think they’d know what they were doing with a film comedy – after all, it was them who helped make Swingers such great fun.
Sadly despite is credentials it’s a bit of a letdown. Jason (Bateman) and Cynthia (Bell) are a couple on the verge of divorce. In a last ditch attempt to save their marriage, they decide to go on a weeklong tropical retreat that offers couples counselling and various things to help people reconnect. To offset the cost of the trip, they get three other couples to come along with them, all of whom think they’ll just go along for a cheap holiday. However the eccentric resort guru, played by Jean Reno, insists everyone must join in with the couples therapy or leave, with the result that soon, even those who thought they were happy, start to believe that their relationship is deeply troubled.
It’s a decent set-up for a comedy, but the whole thing has the feel of people playing it safe. The script is a bit risqué and rude, but not so much that anyone will be offended. It wants to satirise the potential dangers of the relationship therapy industry, but shies away from doing anything but the mildest tickling of its subject. The film desperately tries to be funny with a series of tried and tested humorous situations, but except for a few very giggle-worthy moments, it’s more likely to raise a polite smile than a hearty guffaw.
Even the sterling work the film does setting up a quartet of couples facing the sort of real dilemmas most people have to deal with at some time in their life, is undermined by the contrived hoops it makes the characters jump through, and the fact that the resolutions and understandings they come to feel forced and unrealistic. It ends up being a risqué comedy that’s too polite, a satire that’s blunted, a comedy that tries hard but rarely makes you laugh, and a look at relationships that doesn’t feel real.
It’s as if the makers have taken a far better film and then passed it through a Hollywood-ising filter, and ended up with something that not many will actively dislike, but even fewer will genuinely enjoy.
It’s by no means awful, but Couples Retreat is all a bit ‘blah’, so that by the end it’s difficult to care a jot about what you’ve seen. Perhaps the most frustrating thing is that it looks like it was a lot more fun to make than to watch. The cast all seem to be having a great time making a movie with their mates in Bora Bora, and they certainly put in a lot of effort, but along the way someone seems to have forgotten that the audience is supposed to be having a really good time too.
Overall Verdict: Despite the set-up being ripe for laughs, Couples Retreat feels too polite and contrived to be anything other than passable but vaguely tedious.
Reviewer: Sam Bruneau
