`Couples Retreat' is far from paradise
LOS ANGELES – "Couples Retreat" suggests what life might have been
like if the guys from "Swingers" had grown up, moved to the suburbs and
turned into lame, sitcommy cliches.
Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn team
up again, on screen and on the script (along with Dana Fox), for this
broad comedy about four couples who go on a tropical vacation together.
In theory, they're all there to support their friends Jason
(Jason Bateman) and Cynthia (Kristen Bell)
as they try to save their marriage through the couples' counseling the
resort offers. Little do they know they'll get sucked into agonizing
therapy sessions that reveal their own rifts. For example: Vaughn's
character, Dave, doesn't care about picking out tile to redo the
kitchen. His wife, Ronnie (Malin Akerman), does. It's a laugh riot if you think
Paul Reiser's "Couplehood" is funny — and we haven't even gotten to their
painfully cute young son whose defining personality trait is urinating and
pooping in inappropriate places.
Under the direction of Peter Billingsley (Ralphie from "A
Christmas Story"),
another longtime Vaughn friend and collaborator making his first
feature, "Couples Retreat" veers back and forth in a jarring way
between crude sexual humor and supposedly poignant moments. The couples
endure forced nudity and a wildly erotic yoga class; Favreau's
character, Joey, and his wife, Lucy (Kristin Davis),
who married right after high school, each try to get it on with their
respective massage therapists. But all must also bare their souls,
which feels wedged-in and unconvincing compared to the proliferation of
physical humor.
Faizon Love
rounds out the group as the divorced Shane, who brings along his
20-year-old girlfriend, Trudy (Kali Hawk), a shrill party girl who
likes to call him "Daddy" and pour hot wax on his naked chest.
Each
of these characters is exactly the same person the whole way through,
until one night when they all magically experience an epiphany that
makes them more communicative, patient and loving. During such moments,
a distracting, feel-good score — surprisingly from "Slumdog Millionaire"
Oscar-winner A.R. Rahman — pipes in early and often.
"Couples
Retreat" makes fun of the people who run the place, including the New
Age-y mastermind, Monsieur Marcel (Jean Reno in a braided tail and a
Speedo), and the condescending concierge, Sctanley (Peter Serafinowicz)
— spelled with a "c." But ultimately it embraces the very lessons the
resort is trying to teach. It also finds time for a little shameless
product placement along the way: an extended ad for "Guitar Hero," right as the
movie is approaching its big, revelatory climax..
A
few funny lines and ideas emerge here and there — the rigid Jason's
fondness for PowerPoint presentations is vaguely amusing — but "Couples
Retreat" mostly feels repetitive and overlong at nearly two hours. You
wouldn't mind getting voted off this island..
"Couples
Retreat," a Universal Pictures release, is rated PG-13 on appeal for
sexual content and language. Running time: 110 minutes. One and a half
stars out of four.
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