Tough break

The way Aniston and Vaughn do it, breaking up is hard to view

Robert Denerstein, Rocky Mountain News

Friday, June 2, 2006

Vince Vaughn has a highly developed screen persona. In the language of the marketers, he's "branded." He's fast-talking, glib and unashamed of an unruly libido. He's definitely a smart guy, but you probably won't catch him poring over Proust.

In the emotionally vapid new comedy The Break-Up, Vaughn serves up a mega-helping of his customized shtick as Gary Grobowski, fun-loving Chicago tour guide who enjoys sports, video games and his buddies.

At a Cubs game, Gary meets Brooke Meyers (Jennifer Aniston), a svelte young woman who works at an art gallery. He pushes himself on her; they enjoy a whirlwind courtship (all of it illustrated in the opening credits) and settle into a jointly purchased condo.

Life is good, right? Hardly.

Considering the movie's less-than- mysterious title, it should come as no surprise that love is quickly put to the test in what publicity material describes as "an unconventional romantic comedy." Think of it as a comedy of incompatibility.

After his fling with romance, Gary goes Oscar Madison; he longs for the uninterrupted joys of the couch-potato life. Brooke, on the other hand, wishes Gary would go to the ballet with her. She wants him to share some of her interests, to make at least small attempts to moderate his boorish charm.

That's it. That's the story's rub, and it expresses itself over and over as the couple engage in endless battling. It doesn't take long for Gary and Brooke to call a halt to their relationship, but they continue to share the same condo, which produces a variety of sitcom-level skirmishes.

Gary buys the pool table he's always wanted; he invites buxom women to play strip poker; she attempts to make him jealous by bringing home a hunky potential suitor. They draw lines. She takes the bedroom. He sleeps in the living room.

The thing about Vaughn is that he's awfully good at being Vaughn. He spins out a few funny lines as he creates a character who's supposed to have a little Everyman in him - or maybe it's Everyboy.

Aniston knows her way around this kind of TV-scale material, but the actors don't inhabit their characters in ways that make us care - or maybe that's impossible because their characters aren't all that interesting.

Besides, Gary and Brooke are so obviously mismatched that their breakup seems like a good idea. When Brooke meets a handsome and apparently sane customer at her art gallery, you may find yourself wishing she'd just accept his dinner invitation and get herself into another movie.

The Break-Up would have done well to spend a little more time on the early stages of Gary and Brooke's relationship. That way, we might have cared about whether they stood a chance as a couple.

Amid the increasingly shrill fighting, laughs do arise. John Michael Higgens has a funny turn as Brooke's brother, a man who loves singing in a male chorus. Jon Favreau, who appeared with Vaughn in Swingers, plays Gary's best friend, a bartender with a severe haircut and a personality to match. Judy Davis plays Brooke's boss, a gallery owner whose self-absorption goes way over the top.

Of course, Brooke must have a best friend as well. The job goes to Joey Lauren Adams, who doesn't really have much to do aside from reciting dialogue that alternately dispenses encouraging and cautionary advice.

Every couple will probably recognize some of Gary and Brooke's bickering as having a ring of truth, but nothing in the movie goes deep, and by the end, The Break-Up has turned into a whiff: It doesn't work as a revealing look at relationships or as a consistently funny comedy about the war between the sexes.

Robert Denerstein is the film critic. Denersteinb@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-5424