Splitsville is a riotous and subtly poignant comedy about relationships in all forms, whether it be the unspoken codes of friendship, the perils of the married and monogamous, and the gray, messy, tender space that lies dangerously and enticingly in between. Splitsville is about the friendships between two couples: Carey and Ashley (Kyle Marvin and Adria Arjona), and Paul and Julie (Michael Angelo Covino and Dakota Johnson). When Carey and Ashley suddenly split, and Paul and Julie reveal that their marriage is non-monogamous, Carey and Julie have sex, and absolute chaos ensues.
Like a modern-day screwball comedy, Splitsville cracks jokes beat-for-beat; it’s nearly impossible to keep up with the comedy, verbal and physical and visual alike. I already feel the urge to rewatch it to pick up on more clever gags, and I want to avoid writing about any of them explicitly so as not to spoil how surprising and outrageous they get. Many of the characters make poor choices, which subsequently allows for even worse choices to be made, and the film revels in the secondhand embarrassment and intensity that lovers of Girls or even Uncut Gems will delight in.
Though pop culture references can often make a film feel inauthentic and cringeworthy, the ones laced throughout Splitsville are so superb. Mentions of Vanilla Sky, Macklemore, and The Fray abound, not to mention a charming and funny Benson Boone lookalike in Charlie Gillespie’s Jackson. Splitsville invokes a fantastic and clever ensemble comedy aspect in the various relationships Ashley has amidst the split, who begin to cohabitate her and Carey’s apartment. The camera whirls back and forth deliciously at scenes where the messy confluence of non-monogamy often reaches a head, and the physical comedy is stunningly choreographed.
Astoundingly, Splitsville manages to be a raunchy adult comedy and a superb work of filmmaking, with a Cannes premiere and an outrageous amount of male full-frontal nudity. The film drags slightly in stretches that focus too heavily on the complexities of the relationship drama, when it zeroes-in on one-on-one arguments. The strength of the film is in the physical and ensemble comedic moments, where the poignancy of the film flows through without feeling forced.
Conversations about the perils of monogamy are not merely joke fodder (though don’t get me wrong, this is an unabashed adult comedy), but a creative investigation into the preconceptions we have about the romantic lives of others, even our friends. For all its jokes, gags, and bits about romance, Splitsville is in itself, not a film about love. It explores instead what love and romantic notions draw out in us, what they reveal about ourselves – jealousy, insecurity, desperation, vanity. Both the humor and sincerity of Splitsville is imbued by the messy, chaotic nature of personhood, the cognitive dissonance between what we want and what we say we want. Splitsville urges us to smash our preconceptions of relationships like a clay vase. It doesn’t implore us to do anything specific about it, not to explicitly fall in love or stay together or break up, but to understand the wild unknowability that’s inextricable from any kind of relationship, to be open to the chaos.
Splitsville
2025
dir. Michael Angelo Covino
100 min.
Opens Friday, 8/29 @ Coolidge Corner Theatre, Kendall Square Cinema, and AMC Boston Common
