Comedy time: Splitsville (Michael Angelo Corvino, 2025)
Splitsville is a highly entertaining romantic divorce comedy, starring Dakota Johnson and Adria Arjona, together with the movie’s creators Michael Angelo Corvino and Kyle Marvin.
Following on from The Climb (2019), which won the Un Certain Regard jury-award at Cannes, Splitsville is the second feature from writer-director Corvino and writer Marvin, who both co-star in the film as the husbands of their female stars.
Taking inspiration from classic screwball comedies like The Philadelphia Story, Splitsville tells the story of two couples who, for varying reasons, decide to call it quits.
The film opens with a bold and impressively shot sequence on the highway, in which Ashley (Arjona) and Carey (Marvin) are in their car for a weekend away.
After first trying to her engage her husband of just over a year into some casual sex, something which he politely tries to refuse, another car almost bumps into theirs, before actually crashing in a most horrible way.
After professional help has arrived, Carey and Ashley continue on their way. Realizing that life can be over in a flash, Ashley decides to come clean: she has been sleeping around.
Carey is shocked but wants to forgive her. But when Ashley starts reading Carey her break-up letter, he halts the car again and bails.
During the opening credits we see him running through fields and forests and even swimming in a lake before he finally reaches the beach house of his best friend Paul (Corvino) and his wife Julie (Johnson), who have been together much longer, and also have a ten-year old son Russ (Simon Webster).
After dinner, Paul and Julie try to cheer Carey up by letting him in on a secret.
They are in an open marriage, and their relationship is so romantically and spiritually sound, they can afford to be flexible when it comes down to the physical.
When Paul leaves for work in the city the next night - which Julie is sure is the code he uses when he is going out for a hook-up - she and Carey end up making love. No harm done, right?
Well, it’s actually the starting point of a whole lot of complications, that basically tell us that both marriage and divorce are hard, no matter whether you’re in an open relationship or not.
But even while various divorce papers are drawn up, it’s always possible that our foursome will change their minds again.
And perhaps again and again, as movies like these were often referred to as ‘remarriage movies’ in the Hollywood of yesteryear.
The four stars are somewhat unevenly matched, with Marvin and Corvino looking like characters actors next to the full blown movie star wattage that both Johnson and Arjona exude.
But it’s to the movie and its creators’ credit that they actually make it work.
The movie starts out quite wild and with quite a lot of absurdist humor. There’s even a fight scene that’s straight out of an action comedy with Paul’s house suffering serious damage.
But as the story progresses you actually start to care about these characters.
Even though it’s fair to say that the women are far more sensible than the bro-like men, as is usually the case in matters like these.
Aided and abetted by a whole slew of supporting characters, Splitsville is a very lively engagement, that keeps up a nice pace and feels excellently edited by Sara Shaw.
Director of photography Adam Newport-Berra impresses with some beautifully shot long takes, that give the movie a visual flair that’s often missing from romantic comedies.
Finding the right mix between sophisticated and broad comedy, this is best movie I’ve seen in this genre since Materialists by Celine Song, which coincidentally also starred Dakota Johnson.
I give it four stars!
Note: Splitsville premiered out of competition in Cannes, before being released theatrically in the fall of last year. It is now available on Prime Video.