After breaking up with his girlfriend Ashley (Adria Arjona), Carey (Kyle Marvin) seeks advice from his married friends on open relationships.
“This isn’t just about sex,” Ashley (Adria Arjona) says at one point in Splitsville. It’s an apt line that could summarise the filmmaking partnership of actors/writers/producers/directors Michael Angelo Covino and Kyle Marvin, whose previous feature, the 2019 cycling comedy-drama The Climb, also used a sexual affair as a gateway into exploring male friendship. Here, they move onto a bigger, splashier and more starry canvas to explore modern romance, tackling ethical non-monogamy and open relationships with more grace and shrewdness than you’d expect for a film that opens with a police officer questioning why a man has his penis out on the side of a motorway.
The film is essentially a tale of two couples: the newly divorcing Ashley and Carey (Marvin), and Carey’s best pal Paul (Covino), who’s in an open relationship with his wife Julie (Dakota Johnson). As new romantic dynamics are introduced, all their lives become increasingly entangled. Covino and Marvin represent two extreme sides of masculinity, the former’s alpha mentality playing off the latter’s more sensitive demeanour; they bounce off each other so well you could easily watch them bicker for hours. But the standout is Johnson, who excels in a film that knows exactly what to do with her talents. Showing wit, dryness and impeccable comedic timing, she slots neatly between these two immature men and comfortably walks away with most of the film’s laughs.
There is a confidence here that belies the fact this is only Covino’s second film behind the camera, with sequence after frenetic sequence showing directorial ambition rarely seen in a comedy.
There is a confidence here that belies the fact this is only Covino’s second film behind the camera, with sequence after frenetic sequence showing directorial ambition rarely seen in a comedy. A long take introducing a slew of overlapping romantic partners is a ridiculous highlight (while also doubling as an opportunity to showcase just how charming Adria Arjona can be); the showstopper, however, is an extraordinary fight scene between two jealous, emotionally immature men tearing their way through a house as pristine as an IKEA showroom, stopping only to deliver the lowest of verbal blows. Heightened by choreography so precise it could give John Wick a run for its money, it will have you howling.
Splitsville’s unpredictability is one of its biggest virtues, and only occasionally a shortcoming. The plot zigs and zags, often jumping forward in time, keeping the ground moving beneath your feet. In the latter half, some of the storytelling can feel a tad messy — apt, perhaps, for a film about messy humans. While those jumps from silliness to sincerity can feel abrupt, it’s the raw chemistry between its four leads that keeps the suitably chaotic final act on track. And while the film ultimately appears to take one particular side in the central debate of ethical non-monogamy, Splitsville still opens its arms to love and relationships in all their many forms. It gleefully takes a jab at all of them, too — all the while never being above a well-timed penis joke.
The kind of good old-fashioned adult comedy we don’t see enough — delivering a confident commentary on the mess of modern sex and relationships. Unpredictable, unromantic and, most importantly, unbelievably funny.