By John Corrado
Splitsville is the new relationship comedy from director Michael Angelo Covino and his real life friend Kyle Marvin. The two previously teamed up to make the 2020 film The Climb, a portrait of male friendship told with impressive technical precision through a series of long takes and fluid camerawork.
Covino and Marvin also co-wrote, co-produce, and co-star in Splitsville, and this equally entertaining sophomore feature feels very tonally and stylistically similar to their debut film. Where as The Climb explored a friendship between two buddies evolving over a period of time, this one does a similar thing, but rooted in an exploration of open relationships.
The story gets set in motion with two truth bombs. The first one happens when Carey (Marvin) is informed by his new wife Ashley (Adria Arjona) that she already wants a divorce, mainly so that she can see other people. The second one comes when Carey finds out that the marriage between his best friend Paul (Covino) and Paul’s wife Julie (Dakota Johnson, also a producer) – who they are driving to visit when the divorce bomb drops – is an open one.
As you can imagine, one thing leads to another, and Splitsville ends up exploring the fallout from Carey and Julie hooking up. If you’ve seen The Climb, you will have an idea of what to expect in terms of how Covino and Marvin approach this modern subject matter, embracing a heightened and farcical tone that moves between slapstick humour and sincere character interactions.
The film’s opening sequence, involving a handjob while driving with disastrous consequences, shows us that everything will be a bit exaggerated for comedic effect. Another one of the film’s big comic set-piece is an all-out Looney Tunes-style brawl between the two men that has them fighting through an entire house. It builds to an expectedly chaotic and over-the-top finale with a lot of moving pieces, that all come together thanks to the talented ensemble cast.
The film is largely built around the comfort and chemistry that Covino and Marvin have with each other (including ample male nudity from Marvin). Like The Climb, this film also seems to have been written to capitalize off their real friendship together, and the two have a very natural dynamic that carries through in both the comedic and dramatic scenes. Arjona and Johnson feel like natural additions to the cast, embracing the specific tone of the script.
The screenplay doesn’t necessarily get at much deeper about relationships, beyond the somewhat obvious lesson. But Splitsville is still a fun watch that continues to showcase Covino’s unique eye for bringing these relationship comedies to the screen. The cinematography by Adam Newport-Berra – taking over for Zach Kuperstein, who shot The Climb – makes similar use of wide shots and long takes, including one montage edited to look like a single take that shows the passage of time through the camera spinning around.
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