Director: Michael Angelo Covino
Writers: Michael Angelo Covino, Kyle Marvin
Stars: Dakota Johnson, Adria Arjona, Kyle Marvin, Michael Angelo Covino
Synopsis: After Ashley (Arjona) asks for a divorce, good-natured Carey (Marvin) runs to his friends, Julie (Johnson) and Paul (Covino), for support. He’s shocked to discover that the secret to their happiness is an open marriage, that is until Carey crosses the line and throws all of their relationships into chaos.
While the funnyman duo of Michael Angelo Covino and Kyle Marvin are experiencing what most might call a “big break” with their NEON-backed comedy of marital errors, Splitsville, it should be noted that these two jokesters have been at it – both the filmmaking game and, on screen, one another’s throats – for a while. In 2019, they premiered their debut effort The Climb at the Cannes Film Festival to critical acclaim, though the film was relatively underseen due to its November 2020 release from Sony Pictures Classic. And that’s a shame, not just for the writing-producing-starring team, but for anyone who has even a semblance of anticipation for Splitsville: Not only would Covino and Marvin’s first film make for one hell of a double feature with their new one, but the latter certainly owes a lot to the former.
That’s not say that The Climb isn’t a resounding success with its own merits; quite the contrary is true, in fact, and should you have 95 minutes free before making your way to the theater for what amounts to Covino and Marvin’s second installment in what could theoretically be a series called “Scenes From a Few Unfortunate Marriages,” you could do worse than throwing it on. ($3.99 on most rental platforms, FWIW.) But the twosome’s debut – an increasingly-uncomfortable story of friendship in which Mike tells Kyle that he has been sleeping with his fiancé, and chaos ensues – feels, in hindsight, a lot like a practice run for what Splitsville would become, one in which everyone is more thoroughly entertained.
In their new jaunt – written, starring, and produced by both (Covino directs) – Marvin stars as Carey, a man whose wife, Ashley (Adria Arjona), abruptly asks for a divorce whilst the couple is en route to their best friends’ beach house. In response to the startling request, Carey ejects himself from the driver’s seat of their car into the wilderness, only to magically land at the home of Paul (Covino) and Julie (Dakota Johnson), said best friends who await his arrival having already been visited by the newly-free Ashley. As Carey’s nightmare night rolls on – and like The Climb, this story is divided into chapters with titles like “Termination Event” and “Disclosure of Facts,” to name a few – his pals inform him that they’ve kept their relationship afloat thanks to an open relationship, one that permits feelings-less sex with other people, just as long as the other person knows nothing about the trysts.
Carey, stunned by the notion that these two seemingly successful, attractive adults would ever partake in sexual acts with a partner who wasn’t the other, quickly falls into bed with Julie, and though their evening together adheres to the bylaws of Julie and Paul’s arrangement, Paul is incensed at the news. Nevermind that he’s a bit of a prick, a workaholic, and a neglectful husband; his wife and best friend hooking up was never supposed to be on the table. It’s this idea where Covino and Marvin have the most fun, exploring the boundaries of all kinds of relationships and pushing them as far as they are willing to stretch before snapping entirely and offering up a romantic comedy far more incisive and brutally honest than the one they had crafted within their premise alone.
This unique creative partnership thrives when crafting efficient, ridiculous humor that could feasibly exist in the real world, so it should be no surprise that Splitsville is both hilarious and absurd with neither quality outshining the other. It’s the sort of comedy that teeters on being of a style that would be at home in a dry sketch setting – they could call themselves “Please Do Destroy” if that opportunity came to pass – though despite the Looney Tunes-esque physical comedy that the two regularly display and the quippy nature of their characters’ on-screen interactions, it never feels all that rehearsed nor fleshed out to the point of obsoletism. Ongoing gags in this film involve The Fray and the act of reading articles (or just the headline) but saying you read an entire book on a subject; quick one-liners see the cast confusing ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis) with the ALDS (American League Division Series) and watching Lorenzo’s Oil in a room full of someone’s ex-lovers. It’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it affair, which could easily come off as cocky if the writers behind these jokes weren’t self-aware enough to acknowledge the stupidity that festers within their creations. Covino and Marvin’s works look and sound inane because they set out precisely to illustrate inanity, not for it to unintentionally seep through the seams and stain the production outright.
It’s because of this discernment that both Arjona and Johnson are allowed to play off of their more traditionally-funny counterparts, creating better comedy than either of the two actors have been able to before. Arjona was electric in Richard Linklater’s Hit Man, delivering many of the film’s best comedic moments, but that film hinged on the sensuousness of its co-leads (she starred alongside Glen Powell) more than it ever allowed their senses of humor to take charge; as Marvin’s counterpart here, Arjona eschews the label of the complicated romantic interest for something altogether more fascinating and cleverly performed. Johnson is a bit of a different case, that of a movie star who had previously only ever turned in pure comedy as the lead in Sony/Marvel’s Madame Web, and that project was unintentionally funny, no matter how many people try to convince you of it being authentic “camp.” She has the most to do over the entirety of Splitsville, and the complications in Julie’s own relationship with both men make not just for dramatic tension in a film that might otherwise lack it in a concrete sense, but for insightful commentary on the lives of married folks, especially whether or not divorce is the better option in the long run.
Splitsville may feature one too many dick shots – both on camera and from a fist, knee, or inanimate object – and go more cinematically intentional with its comedy than The Climb ever did to feel like a true parallel move for Covino and Marvin, but that’s by design for the duo. Where their first film was a subtle introduction to the brand of hilarity on which they’d quickly make their names, Splitsville represents an aggressively deadpan stride forward: The kind of film you can tell two stellar comics have been itching to realize for some time. Here’s hoping it won’t take another six years to see what they come up with next.
NEON will release Splitsville in select theaters on Friday, August 22.
