SPLITSVILLE

TWO AND A HALF STARS Carey is shocked that his best friends have an open relationship. He decides to join them - what could go wrong?

COMEDY USA English #SPLITSVILLE Starring Kyle Marvin, Michael Covino

SPLITSVILLE begins with a bold promise, to tease a sharp, unconventional look at love, marriage and the messy, unspoken rules of friendship. The premise - one open marriage upending two couples - is ripe for provocation, handled with stylish compositions, witty banter and a willingness to toy with relationship norms. Especially when the men involved are so clearly unsuited to, and incapable of dealing with, this situation of their own making.

Sadly it’s a promise that fades. The satirical sting is blunted, the narrative retreats to the safety of Hollywood tradition, and most of the  points that creative partners Michael Covino and Kyle Marvin are trying to make are largely lost in the noise. The pair gave us THE CLIMB a few years back with equally mixed results.

Carey (Marvin) is stunned when wife Ashley (Adria Arjona) announces she wants a divorce after just 14 months - a confession triggered by a failed roadside tryst and a spectacular car crash. Seeking refuge with best friend Paul (Covino) and his wife Julie (Dakota Johnson), Carey is surprised to learn they have an open marriage. One consolatory kiss from Julie later and Carey has crossed a line, igniting a chain of betrayals that tests loyalties, egos and the thin membrane between love and lust.

Covino again casts himself as the swaggering alpha to Marvin’s gentle romantic, and while the single-take bravura of THE CLIMB is toned down, the staging remains playful — a hilariously violent brawl between the men is a standout. The early scenes lean into awkward truths about desire and jealousy, setting up an intriguing satire on how ill-prepared people are for the freedoms they claim to want.

But once the plot starts doubling back on itself — rekindled passions here, arbitrary new love interests there — the freshness evaporates. Unguarded emotional moments jostle awkwardly with broad comedy, forcing characters into behaviour that feels at odds with the personalities so carefully drawn early on. Similarly the pivot on which all this balances retreats to the safety of convention and in doing so, pulls a rug from under itself (no easy feat).

There’s fun to be had: Covino and Marvin can still drop a brutally funny line or a painfully honest exchange. Johnson lends Julie both poise and latent frustration, while Marvin imbues Carey with wounded pride and sweetness. Yet Arjona’s Ashley is left stranded by increasingly implausible decisions, and no character emerges with a truly satisfying arc.

Ultimately, SPLITSVILLE starts as a sharp-eyed riff on modern romance before settling for the easy beats of farce and reconciliation. As with THE CLIMB, the filmmakers’ ideas about the competitiveness of male friendship and the fragility of open relationships get buried under contrived plotting and a tendency by the filmmakers to have it both ways. The result is a film that looks good, sounds clever and is frequently entertaining. What’s missing is it’s ability to land the punch it promised.

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