Splitsville: The Intricacies of Attraction Reflected in Elaborate Storytelling

Monogamy is hard. That’s what tends to be used as a rationale for infidelity, and that is for a good reason: monogamy is, in fact, hard, and it’s precisely that effort, most would say, that stands as the defining testament to one’s willingness to commit their all to a relationship. There comes, however, a subsequent logic that, if we were to remove the headache of monogamy from the equation, then perhaps the lack of accompanying guilt would itself serve as a strengthening factor; we trust people to stay faithful physically, so why can’t we trust people to stay faithful emotionally even if that corporeal barrier falls? Splitsville, the second feature-length offering from dynamic comedic duo Michael Angelo Covino and Kyle Marvin, posits one reason: it’s just as hard to remove monogamy from the equation as it is to adhere to it.

It’s a prospect equal parts logical and inane, which gives Covino (who directs, cowrites and costars) and Marvin (who cowrites and costars alongside him) the space to exercise a level of creative flexibility most modern comedies rarely stretch for at all. With the energy of a screwball comedy and the focused (if steep) infrastructure of the most pointed breakup films, Splitsville navigates these waters with all the glee of a jet-ski they’re more than willing to joyride until it sinks down to the bottom of the lake.

It all starts, as these things typically do, with a gruesome crash—not in the metaphorical, emotional sense, but quite literally, as relative newlyweds Carey (Marvin) and Ashley (Arjona) witness a fatal car accident on the way up to a lakeside weekend with friends. This fatal encounter leads to some reflection from Ashley—a life coach, clearly indicating a level of emotional maturity far beyond us mere mortals—which causes her to fast-track her request for a divorce. Her logic? She’s been unfaithful to Carey, and doesn’t feel that their relationship can withstand this sort of breach.

Carey, distraught, seeks refuge with those lakeside friends, Paul (Covino) and Julie (Johnson), who seem to have their marital affairs in order thanks to one special caveat: they’re both free to sleep with whoever they choose. It’s a mindset that makes sense (in theory) when Julie lays it all out, but when she and Carey find themselves putting it into practice, the results prove—for everyone involved—to be unpredictable at best and downright destructive (read: hilarious) at worst.

Covino goes about expressing this mishmash of marital malaise and commitment chaos with similar aplomb as demonstrated in the crew’s prior collaboration The Climb; where that film was more overt in its lofty craft ambitions with a conceit of continuous long takes, Splitsville instead opts towards a less conspicuous style that feels no less purposeful in the choices made in framing and joke setups. Some bits will be set-up, linger in the background, and suddenly spring forth with a payoff that will leave audiences in stitches; others will land with an immediate crash (preferably through a window) as Covino and Marvin excise their frustrations in a fistfight that turns the entire lodge into a battle-ground of destroyable household props.

When it comes time for the film to actually address the cause and effects of these interactions, Covino and Marvin prove no less capable of imbuing this material with a genuine capacity to explore the world these people create for themselves out of a need to build, break and rebuild the bonds they see as inescapable from who they are. As Covino describes it, every character, even those most fleeting in onscreen appearance, are designed with the thought of making every audience member wish they could peek into their lives for an entire spinoff series, and that entrenched commitment comes through in every interaction curated between any number of characters present here.

It goes without saying, then, that the primary quartet of Splitsville is given comparable care in this respect, and Covino and Marvin do well enough to show the interweaving complications of their desires by letting them waft in and out of the story at various junctures; Marvin is the most consistently present—he basically functions as the de-facto lead—but Covino, Johnson and Arjona bring their playful frustrations onto the scene at a moment’s notice, and leave the room feeling like it never could have even existed without them. This may sometimes lead to moments of slightly stalled pacing in which we get the sense that Arjona could possibly be even more present, but never is that pacing stalled by a lack of charm.

Much has been said lately of the pervading streaming-era mentality that comedies built for real theatrical moviegoing are a relic of a day before the dawn of the Netflix queue. And while most studio comedies seem willing to capitulate to a fate of instant drowning in a vast sea of faceless recommendations, Michael Angelo Covino and Kyle Marvin once more prove that they will not take this beating lying down. For these two, in fact, every beating is a chance to muster another laugh, and the end result of Splitsville proves to be something downright paradoxical: a comedy that looks like a ton of work, but where every ounce of that visible effort only makes the silliest jokes stronger.

still courtesy of Elevation Pictures

If you liked this, please read our other reviews here and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter or Instagram or like us on Facebook.

Julian Malandruccolo

letterboxd.com/CynicOfCinema/