Movies: Couples retreat **
(15A, General release)
Friday October 16 2009
The premise of couples repairing to island paradises in order to fight with each other has been trotted out so much of late (in The Heartbreak Kid, for instance, and Forgetting Sarah Marshall) that a film employing it now would have to boast a pretty good script to stand any chance of being entertaining. Instead, Couples Retreat adopts the criminally lazy approach.
Written by Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau, who also star, it tells the story of four couples who end up in an exclusive tropical resort that specialises in relationship courses (pity it didn't do screenwriting courses as well).
Jason Bateman and Kristen Bell are Jason and Cynthia, a married couple whose earnest attempts to conceive have left them in serious trouble. They persuade their friends Dave and Ronnie (Vaughn and Malin Akerman), Joey and Lucy (Favreau and Kristin Davis) and Shane and Trudy (Faizon Love and Kali Hawk) to go with them, and when they arrive on their paradise island they're subjected to excruciating doses of couples therapy. The place is run by Marcel (Jean Reno), a French therapist who spouts platitudes and pushes the redemptive powers of yoga.
As the story unfolds, it becomes clear that the other couples are in just as much trouble as Jason and Cynthia, but films like this don't tend to end unhappily, and an unwise nocturnal adventure leads to a rush of mass realisation. The talents of Vaughn are largely wasted by his own script, and as a result he leans too heavily on his lovable slob persona. But no one else fares that well in a film short on originality and even shorter on laughs.
- Paul Whitington
Irish Independent
