Ever since the 1995 release of There's Something About Mary, I was waiting for the Farrelly Brothers to return to the manically comic heights they scaled there. However, their filmography has been spotty at best. With that said, I was looking forward to The Heartbreak Kid. It reunites the brothers with Ben Stiller and also marks a return to the world of the R-rated comedy. It is behind this R-rated barrier where they thrive and have done their best work.
All of this begs the question: Does The Heartbreak Kid succeed? I would say the answer is yes. This is not their best work, though it is likely the best they have done since Mary.
The Heartbreak Kid winds up somewhere in between the not funny Dane Cook vehicle Good Luck Chuck, and the comedic high notes reached by Judd Apatow's Knocked Up. It delivers many more laughs than the former, while not reaching the heart-filled truth of the latter. This also makes me question the recent commercials promoting Kid. The latest one to hit the screen says that we "finally have an R-rated comedy for adults." I guess they didn't see Knocked Up.
Ben Stiller stars as Eddie Cantrow, a bachelor who is unlucky in love. The movie opens with Eddie attending the wedding of his ex-girlfriend and being forced to endure sitting at the kids' ... sorry, singles' table and having the wedding toast turn into a roast. Funny, the opening is very similar to how Good Luck Chuck opened, except this one actually had some laughs.
Anyway, Eddie is lamenting the possibility of living life alone weighed against being tied down in marriage. It is a very real feeling, one that I am sure many of you out there have experienced. At this early stage in the movie it seems like we are going to get a realistic look at how life can throw you a curve ball when you least expect it. This feeling is not going to last long as the movie is the one throwing a curve ball.
In short order Eddie has a chance encounter with a lovely young blonde named Lila (Malin Akerman). After a little foul-mouthed needling from his father (played by his real-life dad Jerry Stiller), Eddie asks Lila out and a whirlwind romance ensues. The couple have a hasty wedding and head off to Cabo for their honeymoon. This is where the romance heads south. Lila turns out to be completely insufferable and Eddie has a chance meeting with the sweet Miranda (Michelle Monaghan). Miranda makes Eddie realize just how grave a mistake his marriage was.
Article comments
1 - REMF
Didn't you think a few of those scenes were borderline X-rated?
2 - Chris Beaumont
They played the line, but they didn't "show" anything.
3 - patrick
their case for making Stiller's first wife into an annoying monster, etc. was totally un-convincing... it made him look all the more like a lame-o