Splitsville opens with a jolt and a blush. Before you even settle into your seat the movie slips into an intimate moment that barrels off course. It is bawdy and risky and almost perilous. A crude visual gag lands at the exact second a real sense of danger creeps in, and the film lays out its thesis right there. Love and lust. Life and maybe death. The body and the mess we make of it. That is the atmosphere this story breathes. You can tell immediately if this is your flavor or not. I did.
Michael Angelo Covino calls his film an unromantic comedy, which sounds like a cheeky dare. It is also honest. This is not the version of romance that is built on grand gestures and airport chases. It is closer to the prickly movies from the nineteen seventies that let adults behave like adults at their worst. People are rash. They lie and posture. They are very funny too. Covino and his writing partner and co star Kyle Marvin are not afraid to make themselves look ridiculous. That distinction matters. The humor does not come from characters doing dumb things only because the plot needs a giggle. It comes from how they are built and how their blind spots collide with real stakes.
The thing is, Splitsville is not only funny. It is beautiful to look at. It has a stately calm that wraps around the chaos. The cinematographer Adam Newport Berra shoots the film with a strong eye for space and silence. You might know his work from The Last Black Man in San Francisco. He brings that sense of place to a comedy, which is a treat. So many comedies are lit and framed like disposable television. This one glows and breathes. It uses windows and corners and long angles that make the rooms and the water and the sky feel like characters. The elegance of the images nudges the jokes into sharper relief. Beauty makes the bad behavior sting a little more.
The plot kicks off with a blunt confession that tumbles out in a car. Ashley played by Adria Arjona tells her husband Carey played by Kyle Marvin that she has been sleeping with other people and she wants out. The moment cracks him open. Carey explodes out of the car and runs through fields and yards like a man who forgot how to use his legs. It is a meltdown, yes, and also a dash for cover. He finds his way to a waterfront house that belongs to his friend Paul played by Covino and Paul’s wife Julie played by Dakota Johnson. The house is lovely. The view is soothing. It is a fortress for people who are not very good at keeping their own secrets.
Carey drops his bomb and expects sympathy. He gets a curveball. Paul and Julie say that they have an open marriage. They say it plainly like a practical choice. Julie has her suspicions about Paul’s late nights in the city. Paul seems to believe that offering freedom might keep the relationship from shattering. This is the logic of adults who are holding on with white knuckles. Their solution is neat on paper and messy in the heart. Carey listens with wide eyes. His life is falling apart and his safe harbor is not safe at all. It is a place of rules and loopholes where desire is not a private matter. That is the first structural joke of the film. Everyone in this story thinks they can manage the blast radius of their needs.
You can feel where the bed swapping might go from there. What saves the film from becoming a victory lap for leering men is how Covino and Marvin write their own avatars. They are the punchline as often as they are the instigators. Carey is warm and messy and instinctive. You want to buy him a coffee and tell him to sit down for a minute. Paul is prickly at first. He talks like a person who believes he is in control even as he is juggling knives. That posture cannot last. When his plan for a harmonious open marriage meets a very specific test, he jolts into clarity. It turns out the freedom he endorses in theory feels different when it is not abstract. If the person in the mix is his best friend, the game is not a game anymore. His ego and his fear stand up at the same time.
Covino and Marvin know how to construct a friendship that can withstand bad decisions. They also know how to let time work. Splitsville is assembled as a series of windows into several lives. We pop in, we spend a little time, and then we leap forward to the next stretch. The gaps do a lot of the storytelling for us. We learn that Ashley tries on her new freedom like an outfit. Carey drifts toward Julie and then away and then back again like someone learning to swim at night. Paul lets work swallow him until it coughs him up. A children’s party brings us Nicholas Braun, who strolls into the movie for a brief and very funny turn as a performer who knows more than he should. Each sequence feels like a short film with a punchline and a bruise.
This structure does something clever. It keeps the story from collapsing into one big comic set piece and it avoids the trap of over explaining. People change a little between chapters. They pick up a habit, lose a friend, gain a grudge. When we check in again the energy is different. It is not always flattering. The men in this film make choices that will drive some viewers up the wall. They lie when they do not need to lie. They try to smooth the surface instead of addressing the crack underneath. The film does not apologize for this. It also does not beg for your affection. There is a confidence in the tone that feels rare right now. So many comedies are built by committee to make everybody chuckle twice every ten minutes. Splitsville trusts that a specific vibe and a sharp point of view can carry a crowd that is ready for it.
Now for the flaw that sticks out. The women in this story are not drawn with the same depth as the men. The performers give the roles flavor and grace. They do a lot with what they have. Adria Arjona has a charisma that can pull a camera closer. Her work in Andor was proof of that and she carries that ease into this part. Dakota Johnson has a lightness that lifts the scenes where she gets to be quick and bright. There is a version of this film where both of those characters have their own arcs and agency and private weirdness. This is not that version. Ashley and Julie are too often mirrors for male insecurity. They set the challenges. They absorb the consequences. The script gives them responsibility without enough interiority.
To its credit the film knows this imbalance exists. It even toys with it. There is a late scene with Braun’s character that winks at the idea that everyone can see what the boys are going to do next. You can predict the move before it is made. The gag is funny. It also points at the limit of the movie’s curiosity. If it is a comedy about predictable male behavior, what else is it about. The answer, mostly, is craft and rhythm and the small revelations that arrive when a person finally looks in the mirror and says I do not like what I see. That is a lot. It could be more.
The craft really is worth savoring. Newport Berra’s camera is often tucked in a corner or peering through a pane of glass. It shrinks the characters inside their own houses and makes them look like guests in the rooms they bought. The lake house itself becomes a character. Its clean lines and big windows and gorgeous view radiate calm while the people inside ricochet off each other. That contrast builds a sly joke. You can surround yourself with money and comfort and art and still have no idea what to do with your heart. The editor Sara Shaw senses when to sit with a moment and when to cut away. She gives the actors room to fumble and fume. There is a fight between Carey and Paul that is a model for how to stage a comic brawl. It is ugly and looping and embarrassing. You feel the weight of every bad choice that led them there. Then you laugh because you recognize a little of yourself in the mess.
I kept thinking about how rare it is to see a comedy that looks like this. The light on the water in late afternoon. The chill of a room where the silence is starting to hurt. The distance between two people who can see each other but have no idea what to say. These are images that usually live in dramas. Dropping them into a comedy does not slow the jokes. It enlarges them. The laughs land with a thud and then they echo. The movie invites you to enjoy the silliness and still notice the loneliness that lingers after a punchline fades.
Covino and Marvin have done this dance before. Their film The Climb was another study in friendship and betrayal and how men can harm each other without meaning to. Splitsville is broader and splashier in some ways. It is also tighter where it counts. The lines have snap. The set ups pay off. The characters lie to themselves in ways that feel honest. That is a tricky tone to land. A lot of films about people behaving badly wobble into cynicism or condescension. This one is kinder than that. It looks at these men and says I know you want to be better. I know you do not know how.
There is an ending here that will divide people. It is swift. It has a little of that rushed energy that makes you wonder if another scene was once in the cut and then taken out. It is also the landing that the movie has been aiming for the whole time. You may roll your eyes. You may nod. Either reaction makes sense. The final beat is not about surprise. It is about recognition. We are never more ourselves than when we think we can finally fix everything in one grand gesture. Of course we are wrong. Of course we try anyway.
If you want to talk about Splitsville in simple terms, you could call it another comedy about foolish men who learn hard lessons. That is not wrong. It is also not the whole story. It is a film that delights in seeing how desire and fear twine together. It gives you two friends who are terrible at boundaries and very good at denial. It surrounds them with women who deserve more space than the screenplay gives them and performers who wring every drop from what they are offered. It looks at money and ease and says none of this can keep you safe from yourself. It salutes craft. It loves a good bit. It keeps a straight face when it needs to, and then it breaks into a grin.
There is a small sequence late in the film when a mentalist predicts exactly what will come out of a man’s mouth before the words appear. The room laughs because it is a party and because it is accurate. The scene also puts a frame around the film itself. If you can guess what the guys will say, why watch. Because execution matters. Because good timing is gold. Because the same old truth can feel brand new if the storytellers commit to the bit and trust their audience. Familiarity is not the enemy of comedy. Laziness is. Splitsville is not lazy.
So here is the simplest way I can put it. Did I laugh. Yes. Did I wince when someone did the exact worst thing at the exact wrong time. More than once. Did I admire how a camera placement added a quiet punch to a joke. I did, often. Do I wish the film had given its women the same complex arcs it gives its men. Absolutely. Would that make a strong film even stronger. I think so.
The first scene will tell you if this film is for you. It is brash and a little crude and steeped in the feeling that comedy and catastrophe can be siblings. If you smile at that and feel the snap of its energy, the rest of Splitsville will carry you. It is funny without pleading for your approval. It is elegant without showing off. It is unromantic in the ways that matter and still willing to look for grace in the ruins.
In a year where many comedies feel sanded down and assembled to offend no one, this one lets the rough edges show. The characters make a mess of love and loyalty. They own some of it and avoid some of it and perform contrition when honesty would be harder. They are recognizably human. They get better in small, stubborn inches. That is more satisfying than a tidy change of heart kissed by a feel good song.
I do not know if Splitsville will be remembered first for its performances or for its look or for one joke that arrives with absolute perfection. I suspect it will be remembered for the way it holds contradictions in the same frame. A serene horizon outside. A disaster of a conversation inside. A tender friendship that makes everything worse and better at once. A camera that knows when to get out of the way. An edit that lets a breath turn into a laugh.
It is an unromantic comedy, sure. It is also a romance about two friends who cannot quit each other no matter how hard they try. It is a portrait of selfishness and generosity living side by side in the same person. It is a reminder that a beautiful setting cannot protect you from the storm you brought with you. And, maybe most importantly, it is proof that comedy can look like cinema. Not a skit stretched thin. Not a lighting scheme that makes every room look the same. A real film. With jokes that land and linger.
If that sounds like your thing, try it. You will know within minutes if you want to stay. I did. And I stayed all the way through.
