Splitsville

Splitsville is the second film of 2025 that stars Dakota Johnson and also satirizes the perfunctory politics of heterosexual relationships. The first, Materialists, was from Celine Song, and tried to mix sincerity with a playwright’s touch for interpersonal drama. Splitsville is far from sincere. It has the punchy absurdity of a screwball, but layers it over the aesthetic of an R-rated, twenty-first century sex comedy. Where Materialists courted the romcom audience of 1990s Richard Curtis fans, Splitsville is appealing to the unhinged alt comedy crowd while still utilizing classic Hollywood story techniques. The result is something edgier, more unique, and – despite its best efforts – more approachable than whatever Song was trying to pull off. Splitsville is genuinely clever and seriously funny, which makes it palatable despite the cynicism it wears on its sleeve.

The screenplay is written by the film’s two main actors: Kyle Marvin and Michael Angelo Calvino. Calvino is listed as the film’s director. The creative pair had the same credits on 2019’s The Climb (in both films, they’re listed as producers). They specialize in sprawling, cyclical comedies where part of the joke is the cruel forward motion of time. Their interests seem to be the self-imposed boundaries within relationships. In Splitsville, Marvin plays Carey, an emotionally sensitive man married to Ashley (Adria Arjona), a beautiful but flighty life coach. The film opens with the two of them in a scene that mixes frank sexuality and arbitrary violence. The unexpected collision of the two sets the tone for the rest of the film. Shortly after, Ashley makes a confession: she’s been unfaithful and after fourteenth months of marriage she wants a divorce.

This kicks off a torrent of emotional distress that Carey feels throughout the movie. He visits his best friend, Paul (Calvino), who lives in a stunning beachside home upstate with his wife, Julia (Dakota Johnson), and their young son, Rus (Simon Webster). Pathetic and self-pitying, Carey asks how they’ve managed to keep their marriage fresh and loving. Julia explains that they keep their relationship “open”, allowing each other to sleep with other people if they want. The bohemian set-up puts Carey on his back foot – how did he not know that his closest friends had such an arrangement? The next day, Paul goes into the city for work, leaving space for Carey and Julia to take advantage of said arrangement. When Paul returns, Carey immediately tells him that he slept with his wife. Unsure what to expect, Carey is still surprised that Paul responds by lurching at him in a fit of extreme violence.

The two end up fighting for an extended sequence throughout the entire house in what is probably the movie’s main set piece. The scene builds upon the film’s already established absurdity and displays an impressive array of stunt work from the film’s two main characters. Marvin and Calvino, trading vicious blows, crescendoing in a crash through a second story window into the pool, make a case for being the stars of the movie. Which you may need convincing, seeing as these two charming, but unknown (and decidedly without movie star looks) men cast themselves against Arjona and Johnson, two of the more high profile beauties in Hollywood. It’s perhaps crass to mention the beauty gap between the film’s male and female talent, but it’s important to note that it does factor into the script, where Carey and Paul often site their physical inferiority as the reasoning for their fierce insecurity.

The fury continues to spiral between the four main parties, as each enact increasingly farcical schemes to make each other jealous and retrieve the emotional upper hand. They all claim to court love or passion, but they frequently leverage their own shot at such to get one over on any and all perceived antagonists. Who the target is of their cynical games changes from scene to scene. There is a self-consciousness to the movie’s humor – especially in the film’s first half – that appears to undermine what Calvino and Marvin are trying to accomplish. When you realize that this is all baked into the premise, you’re more free to enjoy what they pull off. One extended sequence where Carey meets and befriends all of Ashley’s subsequent boyfriends (Charlie Gillespie stands out amongst the group as a well-meaning but dim Gen Z lover named Jackson) really shows off the juggling act.

Calvino’s direction has an ostentatious quality to it that would wear quickly if the film wasn’t as good. The caustic nature of the dialogue recalls the more acidic portions of Noah Baumbach’s filmography, though Splitsville is more preoccupied with sex than Baumbach has ever been. There’s a way to dismiss the movie as hetero nonsense, before you understand that hetero nonsense is exactly what the movie is trying to puncture. This is a movie about how straight couples create rules that they follow devoutly even as they know they can never live up to the standard they aspire to. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a movie about relationships state that so clearly. When we get to the film’s conclusion, we truly do realize that all of the wild moments were avoidable and dictated by characters who can’t seem to make a final decision on what they want. Is there anything more human than that?

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Directed by Michael Angelo Calvino