Couple’s Retreat (2009)

Directed by: Peter Billingsley | 107 minutes | comedy | Actors: Vince Vaughn, Jason Bateman, Faizon Love, Jon Favreau, Malin Akerman, Kristen Bell, Kristin Davis, Kali Hawk, Tasha Smith, Carlos Ponce, Peter Serafinowicz, Jean Reno, Temuera Morrison, Jonna Walsh, Gattlin Griffith, Colin Baiocchi, Kevin Vernon Vaughn, John Michael Higgins, Ken Jeong, Charlotte Cornwell, Amy Hill, James Wells, Paul Boese, Daniel Cage Theodore, Phillip Jordan, Janna Fassaert, Xavier Tournaud

Success formulas must be milked out and imitated. That’s roughly the most important Hollywood commandment, a rule that the major film companies are only too happy to follow. So it was only a matter of time before the hit comedies of Judd Apatow and his friends started to follow. Those comedies (“Knocked Up,” “Super Bad,” “Forgetting Sarah Marshall”) stood out for witty, boyish humor and a mature take on friendship, love, and everyday troubles.

The creators of ‘Couples Retreat’ have clearly been inspired by the comedies of the Apatowians, in particular ‘Forgetting Sarah Marshall’. Also in ‘Couples Retreat’ we find a group of thirty-somethings on a tropical island, here too relationship problems play the leading role, here too we see a long-haired demigod (this time not a rock hero but a yoga man) and here too we see Sarah Marshall, in the person by actress Kristen Bell.

‘Couples Retreat’ unwittingly proves how nuanced and intelligent the comedies of Apatow and his associates are. The humor in this failed imitator is as trite as it is childish. Dry fucking as a yoga exercise, a very fat brother in his naked ass, a massage without a climax and more of that kind of fun. Some scenes that are intended to be funny are rather scary to watch, such as a character floating in a pool of blood being threatened by life-threatening sharks. And since when is testicular cancer laughable?

The relationship problems are then treated much too seriously, without any self-mockery. We’re bombarded with women’s magazine advice of the kind that a relationship can never be taken for granted but that you have to work on it every day. Because the characters are all sketchy, nobody cares at all whether those relationships and friendships last or not. Moreover, the friendships lack the obvious between real friends, and you always have the idea that the ladies and gentlemen cheat each other as soon as they get the chance.

For example, ‘Couples Retreat’ offers little more than weak humor and nagging thirty-somethings in not too sexy swimwear. You just have to feel like it. Whether this failure will curb the urge to imitate Apatow remains to be seen. Better stolen than never shot, says the second Hollywood commandment. We hold our hearts.