The Carrying On of A Wayward Son

Couples Retreat (2009)

IMDB Score: 5.8 out of 10

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 15 out of 100

Metacritic Score: 24 out of 100

It’s not that I didn’t like “Couples Retreat,” its just that I expected more out of a comedy that was written by and stared Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau.

The feminist in me was a little off-put by the fact that the male actors all got top-billing over the females.

Growing up, I saw “Swingers” at exactly the right time for the movie to make maximum impact on my life. A teenager frustrated with his love life (or lack thereof), I was drawn into the cool confident preaching of Vaughan’s supposed lothario character and connected with Favreau’s unsteady approach to finding romance. I loved the movie and the message that it spoke to me so much that I started listening to swing music and wearing retro rockabilly clothes.

“Couples Retreat,” a film that could almost be a follow-up to “Swingers,” failed to hit me in the same way — leaving me bored and ultimately disappointed with the final product.

A couple of things hit me about “Couples Retreat” right off the bat. First off, it seems that in the last 10 years Vince Vaughan and Jon Favreau have undergone a role reversal in the characters they tend to play. Vaughan began his stint in Hollywood playing the arrogant jerk — fast-talking and impulsive but ultimately loveable. Favreau, on the other hand, played the chump — the loser with the heart of gold. Lately, though, the two have switched places with Vaughan taking on the more traditional romantic comedy role and Favreau tending to gravitate towards roles that are essentially big bullies.

The other thing that struck me about “Couples Retreat” was the fact that I had already seen almost every single funny part of the movie in the trailers for the film. While it is true that I tend to go out of my way to watch movie trailers and that this can sometimes ruin my eventual enjoyment of the final film, “Couples Retreat” was a rarity in the fact that almost all of the good parts were shown in the film’s marketing campaign.

While I do not believe that it is necessary for a film to be rated R in order to be funny, I have come to believe that it doesn’t hurt. With an R rated film, at least, there are jokes that just can’t be shown in television advertisements or during the previews shown before movies. With the amount of advertising that happens in the movie industry, it’s not too surprising that a studio will pull out all the stops and give away their best jokes when trying to sell audiences on a movie.

I wanted to like “Couples Retreat” and I did laugh more then a few times during the movie but I have no desire to ever see the movie again — a qualifier that has become my judgment standard when considering a movie’s worth.

With its interesting choice to include some really awkward emotional scenes of actual couple’s therapy, though, I guess I did learn a little about what it takes to create and nurture a healthy relationship. Or something like that.

I will give the movie props for using David Bowie’s “Modern Love” during the opening credits. Seriously, I love that song and can’t get enough of it. For that alone, watching the movie wasn’t a complete waste.