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‘Splitsville’ Review: Dakota Johnson and Adria Arjona Play the Field in an Exhausting Knockabout Romcom
Starring Dakota Johnson and Adria Arjona, Michael Angelo Covino's broad romcom 'Splitsville' ends up making a stronger-than-intended case for divorce.
Though it follows “The Climb” in unspooling at the Cannes Film Festival — this time in the non-competitive Premiere section rather than Un Certain Regard — the Neon-backed “Splitsville” reps a step into broader, more commercial territory for Covino: Both the sentimentality and the slapstick have been amped up, while a typically, beguilingly laidback Dakota Johnson lends proceedings some A-list star power as the two men’s most contested object of affection. It’s even hard to conjure a plausible backstory for Paul and Carey, supposedly best friends from childhood: Where “The Climb” was sensitively attuned to frictions and overlaps between different schools of masculinity, “Splitsville” smashes together alpha and beta archetypes to purely farcical effect. Covino and Marvin’s dialogue can bristle with pleasingly adult zing and cruelty, as when Julie bluntly explains to Paul why she’s sleeping with his best friend: “He’s kind and trustworthy and has a bigger dick than you.” (The audience gets multiple chances to to verify that statement, though the film is oddly coy about onscreen intercourse.)
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