{"id":81987,"date":"2025-08-19T20:05:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-19T20:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/81987\/"},"modified":"2025-08-19T20:05:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-19T20:05:08","slug":"splitsville-will-bust-your-guts-split-your-sides-and-make-you-fall-in-love-with-adria-arjona","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/81987\/","title":{"rendered":"Splitsville will bust your guts, split your sides and make you fall in love with Adria Arjona"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Michael Angelo Covino and Kyle Marvin ensure that every sequence in the movie has some kind of visual or narrative trick up its sleeve.The Associated Press<\/p>\n

Splitsville <\/p>\n

Directed by Michael Angelo Covino <\/p>\n

Written by Michael Angelo Covino and Kyle Marvin<\/p>\n

Starring Kyle Marvin, Michael Angelo Covino, Dakota Johnson and Adria Arjona<\/p>\n

Classification 14A; 100 minutes<\/p>\n

Opens in theatres Aug. 22<\/p>\n

Critic\u2019s Pick <\/p>\n

As much as we (ie: critics) like to bemoan the current state of big-screen comedy, the past eight months have delivered a relative bounty of larger-than-life laughs. The multiplex might be far removed from the days when Judd Apatow and his acolytes ruled every other weekend \u2013 today, Seth Rogen<\/a> and Jason Segel<\/a> are too busy in the halls of Apple TV+ \u2013 but I\u2019ve been finding seriously silly solace with the likes of Friendship<\/a>, The Naked Gun<\/a> and the forthcoming Canadian epic Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie<\/a>. Now we can add Splitsville to the collection of contemporary cut-ups, with the new comedy so relentlessly funny that you\u2019ll swear we\u2019re back in 2007. <\/p>\n

The latest collaboration from Michael Angelo Covino and Kyle Marvin \u2013 whose 2018 buddy comedy The Climb<\/a> was a sleeper on the festival circuit \u2013 Splitsville follows two deeply unhappy couples who find themselves with a new perspective on life and love after experimenting with, for lack of a better term, inadvertent polyamory. <\/p>\n

On one side is the meek grade-school teacher Carey (Marvin) and his more sexually adventurous wife Ashley (Adria Arjona), a couple who in the film\u2019s opening sequence \u2013 a genuinely outrageous set piece that culminates in one of the greatest visual gags in ages \u2013 are on the verge of divorce. The two break up just as they are on the way to visit real-estate developer Paul (Covino) and his wife Julie (Dakota Johnson), who are both far wealthier and seemingly far happier, having opened up their marriage some time ago. <\/p>\n

But as these things go, no one in the quartet is truly satisfied, and soon Carey is sleeping with Julie, and Paul is trying to convince Ashley to go to bed with him in an act of half-cocked revenge. But there is so much more complexity and elasticity to the characters and their up-and-down dynamics, including Ashley\u2019s revolving door of would-be lovers, each of whom Carey quickly befriends as soon as they fall out of his ex-wife\u2019s favour. <\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Splitsville lives up to its title and then some.The Associated Press<\/p>\n

Not content to simply let scenes live or die on the strength of dialogue, Covino (who directs) and Marvin (who writes) together ensure that every sequence has some kind of visual or narrative trick up its sleeve. At one point, the camera constantly swerves around Carey\u2019s small but jam-packed-with-people loft. At another, it ducks in and out of Paul\u2019s expansive beach house. There is a relentless energy to the pair\u2019s gags \u2013 including a riotous fight between Carey and Paul that rivals the stunt work of a John Wick movie \u2013 that anchors the film somewhere between relatable and absurd.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Johnson and Arjona \u2013 the actresses possessing more familiar faces than their on-screen husbands \u2013 are immensely captivating as women who might not know what they want in life, but definitely know more than their clueless partners. While Johnson goes far above her typically muted charm (this is The Materialists\u2019 star\u2019s more beguiling romcom of 2025), Arjona is even better as the frustrated Ashley. The actress not only leapfrogs over the third-degree-burn sex appeal of her femme fatale in last year\u2019s Hit Man but also adds layers of emotional vulnerability that make every one of her character\u2019s punchlines hit that much harder. <\/p>\n

By the time that the four performers are crammed together in a dizzying sequence involving impromptu sex, a children\u2019s birthday party and the antics of a professional mentalist (played by Succession\u2019s superbly stammering Nicholas Braun), Splitsville lives up to its title and then some. Guts will be busted, and sides will be split. Heck, moviegoers might even learn to kiss and make up with comedies for good. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Michael Angelo Covino and Kyle Marvin ensure that every sequence in the movie…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":81988,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[49,48,42729,75,337,2922],"class_list":{"0":"post-81987","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-criticspick","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-movies","13":"tag-noastack"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81987"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81987\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}