The Breakup

Imagine that your favorite romantic comedy meets The War of the Roses, and you've got the formula for The Breakup. This film features Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn.

The Breakup starts with their chance meeting, and is quite like any number of romantic comedies. During the intro credits we gain a sense of their relationship as these two strangers work on getting to know each other, and to build a life together. The rest of the movie shows us that breaking up can be a quite difficult and painful experience for all concerned. The discontented couple proceed to bicker about every aspect of each other's lives- including the bowling team, for example. Their divided friends offer advice, which is occasionally helpful, and insightful, and just as often is not. There are just as many heartfelt scenes as laughs along the way as we cover the full range of human emotion as the story proceeds.

Enhancing the plot is the rich location of the city of Chicago. The Breakup does a great job of integrating in some unique "windy city" locales, and providing some context. This is cleverly done as Vaughn's character plays a local tour guide.

I generally am not a big fan of Aniston as she rarely progresses beyond the stereotypical exemplified on her role on "Friends," but this is her best effort thus far. I thoroughly enjoyed The Breakup, and appreciated its less common theme. It's almost like this is a sequel to any number of romantic comedy movies where they ride off into the closing credits, and we are led to wonder if things would really work out.

Overall Grade: A-

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