Vince Vaughn never gets out of second gear in Couples Retreat, a malleable comedy that too often gives in to mawkishness. The film’s star, producer and co-writer is a comic actor whose essence is to be found in his tempo; Vaughn at his best is frenetic yet lucid, crazed but somehow logical, and his best monologues, such as the speech early on in The Wedding Crashers about why he doesn’t date, are hilarious high wire acts that obviously only work when he has the complete opposite – i.e. Owen Wilson – to bounce off.
Vaughn does have a lot of talent to bounce off in Couples Retreat, including his old friend Jon Favreau, with whom he made his breakthrough in 1996’s Swingers, but there’s no sustained comic invention to be derived from the storyline, which ends up sitting uncomfortably between adolescent mayhem and adult responsibility.
The movie, the debut feature from actor Peter Billingsley, shoehorns four distinct couples (so distinct that it’s never clear why they’re friends) into a test of their relationships: Dave (Vaughn) and Ronnie (Malin Akerman) are struggling to achieve family goals; Joey (Favreau) and Lucy (Kristin Davis) married young and now have affairs out of indifference; Shane (Faizon Love) is recently divorced and dating a woman half his age, Trudy (Kali Hawk), while the overly logical Jason (Jason Bateman) and Cynthia (Kristen Bell) are foundering over their failure to conceive.
The latter two, having presented their findings in a Powerpoint presentation, sweep everyone off to a luxurious Pacific island resort, where the relaxation is preceded by mandated therapy session overseen by a relationship guru, Marcel (Jean Reno). The movie, co-written by Vaughn, Favreau and Dana Fox, wants to have fun with the character’s peccadilloes, but it can’t decide whether it is savage or sweet. It has too much respect for the institution of marriage to upend any of the participants.
Jason Bateman, for example, who is a master of dry, perverse observations merely comes off as dry. You can get a sense of how the filmmakers tried to compensate for this idling feel by the depth of casting. Every supporting role is filled with a familiar face – two of the therapists conducting sessions are played by the instantly recognisable John Michael Higgins (The Break-Up) and Ken Jeong (The Hangover), while New Zealand actor Temuera Morrison literally stands silently to one side to play Marcel’s impassive assistant.
The picture plays out neatly as three acts that detour the couples before reuniting them and with the relationships so broadly sketched there’s never any really possibility of insight. Jason and Cynthia have to stop trying to be perfect, while Joey and Lucy need to remember that they were once passionately in love. Only the occasional interlude, such as a panicked Dave being menaced by sharks, makes you forget how it’s neatly laid out.
What makes Couples Retreat interesting is that ultimately it errs on the side of maturity, which is rare in an industry increasingly predicated on teenage tastes. Like 2006’s The Break-Up, another film driven by Vaughn, it’s interested in how love becomes a lasting relationship. That earlier film dug deeper, drawing something genuine from Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston. This time, however, it’s neither telling nor amusing for any sustained period of time.
That makes the blaringly vulgar product placement deal, for a video game, all the more demeaning. The only relationship that ultimately matters within Couples Retreat is between the producers and their major sponsor.
