The Heartbreak Kid: Movie Review (2007)

(Originally published 2007)

Directed by Peter Farrelly and Bobby Farrelly, written by Scot Armstrong, Leslie Dixon, the Farrellys and Kevin Barnett, 115 minutes, rated R.

Since "The Heartbreak Kid" is from the Farrelly brothers, creators of "There's Something About Mary," "Dumb and Dumber" and "Osmosis Jones," the natural question is this: How will they get people talking this time around? What outrageous scenes will they unleash upon the moviegoing public to generate a buzz?

For the Farrellys, who likely lose sleep over such dilemmas, this time out it might be the way one character's deviated septum allows for food, liquid and any number of other grotesqueries to spew from her nose and onto herself and others. Or perhaps it will be how that same character's more personal parts are revealed in a jarring onslaught of hirsute surprise.

At the very least, certainly people will talk about how that very character--a woman used throughout as a comedic scapegoat--chooses to cool one man's jelly fish sting by squatting over him and letting loose with a flood of good intentions.

Or will people talk at all?

The idea that they won't is the air of desperation that hangs over the movie and which, too often, suffocates it. In this film, a remake of Elaine May's 1972 comedy of the same name--which did just fine, thank you very much, without ever going for the all-out gross-out (its only offense was Jeannie Berlin's enthusiastic abuse of egg salad)--the question isn't how much is too much. Instead, the question is how much is necessary to startle laughter from an audience that, at this point, is more difficult to shock than ever.

Ben Stiller is Eddie, a single San Francisco businessman who, at 40, is feeling pressure from his father (Jerry Stiller) and best friend (Rob Corddry) to tie the knot. Eddie's ex-fiance recently was married at a wedding that humiliated him to no end, so when he meets the lovely Lila (Malin Akerman, channeling Cameron Diaz) after her purse is stolen, he strikes up a relationship with her that quickly leads to marriage.

Too quickly. On their honeymoon in Mexico, Lila begins to irritate Eddie in ways that make him question his decision to marry her--she likes to sing in the car, that deviated septum of hers can be a problem, and so apparently can her interest in sex, which makes Eddie feel uneasy. When Lila gets a nasty sunburn and must stay in their hotel room to heal, it allows Eddie to wander and to fall in love with Miranda (Michelle Monaghan), whom he decides is the real woman of his dreams after only two days in her presence.

And so begins a series of manufactured misunderstandings, with Eddie deceiving Lila, Miranda and Miranda's family so he can spend more time with Miranda. Nice guy? Not on your life, and while the movie initially tries to fool you into thinking otherwise, its last scene tells a different tale.

Unlike, say, Judd Apatow's crude romantic comedy "Knocked Up," "The Heartbreak Kid" doesn't press the limits in ways that make you connect with the characters. That's its failing. As base as "Knocked Up" could be, it never forgot its characters, the necessity for them to be sympathetic and real, the idea that the laughs would come harder the more that audiences connected to those making them laugh.

"The Heartbreak Kid" misses that critical point and, as such, it also misses its shot to stand alongside the year's better comedies.

Grade: C+