We Broke Up (2021)
(On Cable TV, November 2021) With a title like We Broke Up, don’t expect a modern comedy of remarriage — while this awkward romance flirts with the possibility of reconciliation, it will do wonders for your expectations to go into the film with the dead certainty that the title consists of the last words of dialogue spoken. It doesn’t make the film less melancholic, but at least you won’t have false hopes. Much of the plot has to do with a long-time couple, still unmarried, who decides to break up days before the marriage of her younger sister… but still go to the wedding to keep up appearances and avoid dealing with unpleasantness. Still, the truth has a strange habit of being unescapable, and much of the film’s comic moments have to do with them going to elaborate lengths to avoid or sidestep the question. Far more of a depressive dramedy than an outright comedy, We Broke Up may be a tough sell for many viewers — it’s one of those films in which the couple breaks up out of boredom more than anything else, and no one is really gaining anything from that decision. Frustration may be the dominant emotion, especially as the lead couple is rather likable, either on their own or together. I’d like to go all generational and point at the film’s emotional detachment as being a symptom of all that’s wrong with today’s etc., etc., etc. but there have been movies like that for a very long time (not even going back all that far back, have a look at 1997’s Breaking Up, with Salma Hayek and Russel Crowe, or 2006’s The Break-Up with Jennifer Anniston and Vince Vaughn), and they’re often low-budget marginal affairs because there isn’t much that’s uplifting or even all that perceptive in what they have to say — breakups happen, maybe they’re justified but everyone’s sad anyway, roll credits. We Broke Up does have a few interesting moments here and there, including a pair of supporting performances from the marrying couple that often outshines the leads. It’s a downer of a film, but writer-director Jeff Rosenberg is after something specific here and seems to have achieved his objective. Now, whether he can get others to listen is another story.