I DO…UNTIL I DON’T – Review

June (the big wedding month) is soooo three months ago, and February (home of THAT holiday) is nearly half a year away, but the new indie comedy for the first of September looks at romance and marriage. Now, this isn’t a sweet “rom-com” all about the bloom of “new love” and the rocky, but ultimately smooth road to the altar. No, this basically concerns three couples who have made that committment (one hasn’t got the certificate, but they’ve got a child), but they’ve hit a bump (actually one is moments from careening off the highway). You could say that the last tier of the wedding cake is in the fridge, the foil is frayed, and freezer burn is imminent. Though somehow there are still lots of laugh at this look at relationships whose title harkens back to the big event, I DO…UNTIL I DON”T.

The story’s setting is romantic, the sleepy little Florida town of Vero Beach. But a visitor to this burg is about to shake them all awake. At a library conference room, Vivian (Dolly Wells), an acclaimed British documentarian, announces to a gathered group of locals, that the town will be the setting of her new work about modern marriage. Her intent is to show that the institution is outmoded, and marriage vows should be “up for renewal” at seven-year intervals. Vivian and her crew will interview residents with a financial compensation involved. This interests one of her fans, the shy, reserved Alice (Lake Bell). Her marriage to hubby Noah (Ed Helms) has been reduced to procreation interludes prompted by a fertility “app”. Plus their window treatment shop is circling the drain, so they could use of participant cash. Alice envies the wild spirit of her sister Fanny (Amber Heard), who lives a nomadic life with long-time partner Zander (Wyatt Cenac) and their little boy Zenith. The trio is in town for a “craft festival’ and stop by. Alice is stunned when Fanny mentions that they have already been approached by Vivian to be in the doc (she wants to show their modern “open relationship”). While at a local diner, the film maker encounters a bickering middle-aged couple, Cybil (Mary Steenburgen) and Harvey (Paul Reiser). She’s estranged from her adult daughter by her first marriage and is frustrated by what she thinks is Harvey’s midlife crisis (always on his new motorcycle and dressed accordingly in leather jacket, helmet, etc.). When Harv heads to the mens room, Vivian makes her an offer to be filmed, and Cybil negotiates a deal. But when Vivian doesn’t get the results she wants (Alice and Noah are too dull, Fanny and Zander aren’t actually that “open”), what will she do to get her theory on film? And what happens when the three couples get wind of her methods?

A talented group of comic actors has been gathered by Ms. Bell, though I would argue that her role is not the one most integral to the story. That would be Ms. Wells as the aggressive, abrasive Vivian, who is the closest to being the real villain in this tale. She’s so egocentric, so preening, that’s its hard to see how anyone this irritating would be given funding for her “preconceived” projects. Vivian recalls the feature directing debut of Albert Brooks in 1979’s REAL LIFE in which his Brooks character forces himself into his subjects’ lives, trying to “jump-start” some drama that’ll make the film more compelling and commercial. Despite her energetic work, Wells can’t quite make Vivian as endearingly silly as Brooks and only succeeds in making her a pretentious pill. Then there’s Bell as the twittery, repressed Alice, a role that’s frustratingly inconsistent. She works best as the supportive, frazzled spouse, but her “throwing Noah under the bus” during the doc scenes and a later foray into the “adult services industry” (didn’t Streisand do that over 40 years ago in FOR PETE’S SAKE) arrive right out of left field. As talented as she is (and she’s been the only bright spot in some many flicks) Bell can’t make her more than a cliché. Helms, as her spouse Noah, does a spirited twist on his “aggressive nerd” form THE HANGOVER trilogy and TV’s “The Office” while showing us the fragile side of the guy’s psyche. Heard is a glorious, glamorous “flower child” as Fanny as she makes the Bohemian fashions and attitude feel fresh and new. Cenac brings a laid-back snark to Zander, a “chill dude’ who’s more “of this world” than he lets on around his “lady”. The most fascinating pair may be Reiser and Steenburgen. She’s been doing great work recently on TV’s “The Last Man on Earth”, and her Cybil is another cynical, dour woman who will not tolerate any nonsense. She looks at her hubby with dead eyes, thinking he’s a clown, but really more dismayed by he own choices. The story’s hero may be Reiser’s Harvey, who stand up to Vivian and will not let Cybil give up on them. While many of his roles have been as a twitchy neurotic, Reiser this time out conveys an inner strength that propels Harvey to fight for their love.

This is the second feature film from the multi-talented Lake Bell, after her auspicious debut four years ago with IN A WORLD. That film was fresh and fascinating, an insider’s view of the unseen world of the voice artist, a family dynamic laced with loads of “tinsel town” feuds and fights. I wish I could say the same for the follow-up, with several plots that barely connect (the Harvey/Alice thread is the most frayed). Everyone seems to bounce off of Vivian until the nearly incoherent finale where the couple almost band together for a “Marriage is Marvy!” music number, complete with, believe it or not, somebody going into labor (really, again?). It just feels too close to some of the cloying big cast holiday comedies from the late Gary Marshall. Let’s hope that Bell gets much better material for her much-anticipated third feature (maybe a return to the sound booth, please), rather than this uneven farce that’s a poor mix of elements from other films (the earlier mentioned REAL LIFE, PARENTHOOD, and many others). I DO…UNTIL I DON’T just doesn’t cut …the ole’  movie wedding cake.

2 Out of 4

I DO…UNTIL I DON’T opens everywhere and screens exclusively in the St. Louis area at Landmark’s Plaza Frontenac Cinemas