Splitsville (2025)

2 1/2 Stars (out of 4)

The Quad Couple

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

Michael Angelo Covino's comedy Splitsville does well enough when it focuses on a close but volatile male friendship, but it doesn't seem to know what to do with the women in their lives, and it loses its way in the final third.

Ashley (Adria Arjona) and Carey (Kyle Marvin) are driving to visit friends. They have been married just over a year. When they witness an accident and a woman dies, Ashley is inspired to tell Carey that she is not happy and wants a divorce. Carey gets out of the car and walks to the friends' house, Paul (Michael Angelo Covino) and Julie (Dakota Johnson). They inform him that they are in an open relationship, and while Paul is away at work, Julie and Carey sleep together.

Carey finds the encounter stirring and can't stop thinking about Julie. But when Julie rebuffs him, he tries to convince Ashley that they, too, could be in an open relationship. Ashley takes many lovers, and they all seem to stick around their apartment as Carey befriends them all. Then, Carey learns that Julie has feelings for him, too. Finally, at a birthday party for Julie and Paul's son Russ (Simon Webster), everything comes to a head in a fiery way.

Real-life best pals Covino and Marvin return after their strong debut The Climb, with Splitsville, their second feature; they share writing duties and Covino directs.

Covino has a great sense of rhythm and timing, often letting the camera roam for long takes and ramping up a sense of unease, or cutting from one shot to a matching shot while jumping in time. The movie is more visual, more cinematic, than most of its type. And it's clear that the friends are making a movie for themselves, a movie that amuses them, which — in a time when everything is tested and focus grouped and marketed — is a rarity.

But the more the plot becomes tangled, the less they seem to be able to hold things together, and the laughs eventually stop coming. What's more uncomfortable is the way the screenplay seems to manipulate the women into reacting to the men, rather than acting in ways that feel organic. (It's more of a stretch when you consider that they are two glamorous starlets who are somehow involved with two ordinary, everyday guys.)

Then there's the ending, which suggests a full circle, but… to what end? Was it all for nothing? Splitsville is still an admirable movie that couldn't have been easy to get made, and it's good enough to make you wish that it could be better.