She Don't Use Jelly

This rant contains spoilers. Read at your own risk!

Been a long week and by last night I had decided that I was in serious need of some comfy couch and Chinese and movie action. Kidlet and I settled ourselves in and perused our choices via On Demand. We decided we were in a RomCom happy movie kinda mood so we chose The Break Up.

I was always team Brangelina rather than Vaughiston, but I have to say the previews did make it look like it would be semi amusing. You know couple fights, each refuses to leave cool condo, hilarity ensues, couple reconcile, every one smile. Wrong, my friends. Very very wrong. Remember this post where in I warned of the dangers of John Cusack movies? Well triple that. Never EVER watch The Break Up on or around the anniversary of a break up or if you are feeling even remotely uneasy in the romance realm. Just back away slowly folks and no one will get hurt.

Sesame chicken in hand we settle in and start watching. They show the couple first meeting - cute, very cute. Great pick up on Vaughn's part. Quirky and charming. Then we see the photo montage of the happy couple, including the renovation of this stellar condo they co- own. Then it goes a bit black. It is called The Break Up so kidlet and I were prepared for this. Gotta have a break up before you can make up, right? Standard RomCom scenario.

First thing I notice is that they are really hitting it on the realism scale as you watch the tiny petty arguments start to snowball. How she is saying one thing but he is hearing something entirely different. And both are right and both are wrong. I was cringing hard and thinking someone wrote this when they were feeling particularly bitter. On they went and it was like watching a train wreck in slow motion.

The argument started out as a gripe about a small issue (lemons) and turned into a laundry list of hurts, and finally they found themselves at that point where, boom, you have broken up and you are not really sure how you got there. Anyone who has ever had a break up knows what I am talking about. That stunned kind of silence you get when you realize that this stopped being about lemons and you are now ex's.

So ok, that was rough. Props for the realism, let's move on to the good stuff.

Some hilarity ensues as they attempt to share the condo as ex's, don't get me wrong, but there is always this vague disquieting unhappy undertone to it. She kicks him off their bowling team, he tries to retaliate with game night anger that finally leads their realtor to get them to agree to sell. They just have to try to not kill each other before then.

Now about this time, Brooke (the Aniston character) makes it known to us via a convo with her boss that she is really interested in trying to get back together with Gary (the Vaughn character) and asks her wacko artiste boss for advice. She thinks (oh foolish girl) that by dumping him, he will realize all he has to loose with this break up and stop being so self involved. **Please note at one point in time in the movie Gary's homicidal bar owning best friend tells him point blank he is a ton of fun but that he never ever does anything he does not want to do and if his friends don't like it, tough shit. So this is not me being male bashing here, it's a given, Gary is a lovable and fun but seriously selfish man **

Brooke takes the advice given to her by her nutjob boss and gets the "Telly Savalas" wax job (due I need to spell that out for you people?) and parades the "blank canvass" (as her boss calls it) in front of Gary. She brings home a date, he get's tense, thinking of someone else painting the "blank canvass."

She leaves on the date, it sucks, she hides out at a friends. Which of course Gary does not know so he is freakin out. She comes home and they get spiteful over night time noise versus daytime noise and the one upsmanship begins. The only true funny scene in the movie involving her not out of the closet acapella singing brother takes place. It was a tiny baby bright point.

She brings home another date and this time Gary and the Date end up bonding over video games (I am sure you all saw this in the commercials and trailers for this movie) which is funny but again, not. Still has that faint bitter undertone.

Gary retaliates to all this boy toyage by calling in his brother and many hot women for a strip poker game. Queue Brooke coming home to naked drunk Gary on the couch with a bunch of half naked chicks doing table dance moves. Right about now, I am starting to get a bit concerned at the direction we are heading here. Kidlet is beginning to grumble. Kidlet hates anything sappy and even she is getting pissed off.

We have more yada yada. Brooke realizes that Gary is just too self involved to see the writing on the wall and if she wants to stay together she is going to have to be the one to cave in. Which she then attempts too. By inviting him to a concert with her, saying oh so nonchalantly that she got the tickets for him before the break up blah blah blah. Totally obvious it is an olive branch, right? Kidlet and I are relieved, the chocolate stores remain safe for the night (we were getting tense and pondering sublimation) and it all looks to be slowly moving the right direction.

Until the asshat stands her up.

She comes home, she cries, he feels like crap and Kidlet and I are thinking it could still go ok in the end. Fine, they are gonna make us sweat a bit over our happy ending but ok, we are big girls, we can take it.

We see the above referenced convo with Gary and his bar owning friend. We see Gary have the epiphany that yes indeed campers, he is totally selfish. We see Gary finally doing the paperwork his older brother has been asking for at the family business. Personal growth!

Cut to Brooke. She is quitting her job and announces to her boss she will travel. Boss tells her that her job is there whenever she gets back. Ok... so we got a possible foreshadowing here. Another reconciliation option. Vacation, regroup, re-grope. Kidlet and I are lulled into false sense of security over this. We can do this.

Brooke comes home with A Cute Customer who we have seen ask her out (and be turned down by her) earlier on in the movie so only we know she is just at the condo showing him antiques he wants to buy from her. When they walk in she discovers that Gary has set a beautiful table and cooked her dinner. A Cute Customer is conveniently shunted to the hallway. Kidlet and I are pleased. We have had personal growth and now we get our shiny happy make-up time.

Except we don't.

See Brooke has realized that she loves Gary, but she just has nothing left to give. They are really done. It's all too little too late.

What?! Pardon me?! Kidlet and I pause movie and stare at each other in shock and horror. We are not having happy blue and pink thoughts.

Restart and we watch them in the now empty condo as they both say that there are a million things they would do differently. Kidlet pauses the movie and yells something about starting with redoing the last scene and announces that she is pissed and I look grim.

This is getting really frickin low on both the Rom and the Com. Prozac, party of one, your table is ready.

In a fearful silence, we restart the movie. We watch a montage of the seasons changing. Looks to be a year or so. We see Gary on a new business adventure. We see Brooke walking down the street. We hear someone call her name and low and behold, it's Gary! Kidlet and I perk up. Surely this will be it, right? Right?

Brooke and Gary chat, they hug, wait..what are they doing now. WALKING AWAY?!

What. The. Hell.

Credits roll and the music starts up ~I Can See Clearly Now.

WHAT?! That is a low blow. That is the happy send off music at the end of Grosse Point Blanke and it has just been tainted. See how it all ties back to John Cusack?

Kidlet and I are stunned. Song ends and they start another. Would you believe it was Kermit singing The Rainbow Connection?!

Bastards.