Breaking Up

I have always thought that we should fall in love with people for their dreams, and for their efforts to fulfill those dreams--not for their accomplishments. Love a man because he's a brilliant actor and aspires to greatness--not because he can take you to the Oscars when he's nominated for Best Actor.

That philosophy informs my opinion of this movie. It sets out many lofty goals for itself. It wants to demonstrate and lay out for examination the entire plight of heterosexual love/lust. It wants two actors to carry an entire movie virtually by themselves, playing against each other, giving the film a stifled, claustrophobic feeling--where the viewer feels just like Steve and Monica. You love the movie, but you feel breathless and spent, like you've given too much. It wants to tell a story using live on-the-street interviews, black-and-white still photography, slow-mo vignettes, traditional Hollywood-styled cinematography, and a split-screen interview of Steve and Monica post-relationship. It wants to use music and sound to resonate with the storyline. My favorite ten minutes of the film center around the "carrot scene," where Steve criticizes Monica for putting carrots in the pasta. The action stops and moves to b&w stills, with the sounds of their argument carrying over. This technique highlights the alienation that Steve and Monica feel from themselves and their own relationship. Even in the most heated, passionate argument, it's as if they're just going through the motions.

Like I said, this film wants to do a lot of things, and it doesn't succeed at all of them. For instance, it doesn't really pull off its attempt at using Freud, Einstein, and Marx to lend some credence to its own conclusions (or inconclusions) about love. Some people say they never do become very attached to Steve and Monica--indeed, as people, the characters kind of suck. I would not want either one of them for a friend. That does not mean that they do not deserve to be loved, however--they very much deserve each other, that much is clear. So, I bawl like a baby every time I watch this. (I've seen it about 6 or so times). And I love this movie for the greatness it strives toward. I would rather watch a film that fails at its grand project than a little movie that has low expectations and meets them. Big whoop, right? More than this, Breaking Up features two brilliant performances by Russell Crowe and Salma Hayek, who are both quite easy on the eye, and look great together. Salma's fiery spirit is quite a cinematic match for Russell's own undercurrent of simmering violence (even if Steve is a bit whimpy for my tastes). I love this film. Technically, there is so much going on--the director had so many great ideas, so many dreams, and you see them right there, in the movie. I can't think of another Hollywood movie with such a major confluence of established styles and innovative techniques. Brilliant.

Buy this film. It is absolutely worth it, and fans of Russell and/or Salma should know that there are some beautifully-shot, utterly sensuous and compelling love scenes in this film. Those two have *chemistry*.

This is not a mainstream movie. This is the film of a play. And its excellent. I rented it because of the cast. I couldn't turn it off because of their truly awesome performances.

Monica is in love with Steve. Steve is in love with Monica. The only problem is, they don't know why. They don't know what questions to ask, of themselves or each other. They struggle with expressing what they believe is honesty. They wound one another raging against unmet expectations they've never admitted, thinking that such admissions would be contrary to their love. They're both too young to handle the intensity of their emotions, to understand what's happening.

This film is billed as a comedy. As a comedy, it fails miserably. Watch it instead as a tragedy, and you'll fall in love with it.

Steve is a photographer, Monica is a teacher. They don't get along. So it's time for them to break up. Watching two people try to break up for nearly two hours (fortunately, that included lots of commercials) is not my idea of entertainment. Unless they are funny, which these two generally were not.

The film showed promise. At the start, both characters are talking to an unseen interviewer or counselor, or maybe just to the camera (they also talk just to the camera in a later scene). They are giving good performances at that point. Then things go downhill quickly.

The film was not a total waste of time.

The best part of the movie had Steve and Monica doing what appeared to be a documentary, shot in black and white, where they interviewed ordinary people on the street about male-female relationships. These people seemed real and may in fact have been real (they certainly weren't shown in the credits). One little girl said the best thing to do with a man was 'dump him in the garbage'.

Also good: a sequence of fantasies about what the wedding might be like, inside a church, involving a demented minister, an Einstein lookalike, and Steve and Monica both lying on couches with a psychiatrist between them.

Salma Hayek looked good in a swimsuit. Too bad that was only in a fantasy (Steve's, actually) where a Fabio type with Schwarzenegger muscles was bench pressing her.

Several scenes had really good music, most of the good music being real jazz. There was also 40s-style easy listening. And then there was contemporary music that didn't appeal to me at all. (Well, what can you expect when the man in charge of music led Devo?) One scene was spoiled for me when the trumpet and the stand-up bass were cut off prematurely when the couple started bickering again.

I'm not sure what this meant, but several sequences other than the 'documentary' were filmed in black and white with no dialogue from the characters on screen. Two had quick editing and gave the impression of quality. One had Steve and Monica in a restaurant with a series of different dates, in what appeared to be just a few minutes as the camera went back and forth between them.

The only way this could have been a good movie is if it was in fact one of those art films that appeals to the people who go to coffee houses and listen to poetry. I'm not one of those.

The first time I rented this movie, it seemed a bit annoying because of all the arguing, etc., but it entertained me enough to give it a second look and I ended up buying it. It speaks to the need in all human beings to love and be loved and all those weird things we say and do to somehow keep it from happening to us. I felt like I was in the front row of an off-broadway play and admired the characters so much for having to learn all that dialogue and have no other actors to share the load. My favorite scene is the middle of the night at Monica's place when Steve is quietly trying to leave and the ensuing conversation they have. The very last scene was open to the viewer's own feeling - we know they were each other's one true love but we had to decide what their future held (Personally, I think they ran in to each other in New York - in a taxi - after their children had grown and their first marriages were over and lived happily ever after - unmarried, of course!) Great acting by Salma Hayak and Russell Crowe.

A few technical flaws along the way, but all in all the way the music played with the scenes, a good dose of humor, and the realistic love scenes pretty much rounded out the on again/off again true love relationship Monica & Steve aspired to. *** out of ****

I'm conflicted about this film.

The two leads have zero chemistry together, which gives their messed-up relationship no credence whatsoever. In real life these two would have never gotten together in the first place. Someone decided two "on their way up" stars should make a movie, and it wasn't a great decision. They do their best, but it fails to carry the movie.

I liked the script though. Sometimes relationships aren't a clean breakup where people just decide that they want to be out. There's indecision, better the devil you know, maybe it's not so bad after all, the uneasy feelings of breaking it off permanently. This film encapsulates all of that. It does feel a bit repetitive for all the breaking up and getting back together, but it's perfectly captured.

Hated the direction! Inexplicable moves from colour to black-and-white, weird camera angles, lighting changes, jumping from one shot to the next. I suppose it was meant to feel jarring and analogous to the relationship being portrayed, but it was super annoying and discombobulating for the viewer. Ultimately this is the thing that made me give this film such a low rating. It felt like the director was trying to be edgy (in a very 90s way) but it did not work at all.

Not a great movie. I wished I liked it a lot more, but unfortunately the pieces just don't fit.