Abrasive, absurd and too dependent on shock value, The Breaker Upperers fails to trigger laughs with its eye-rolling, immature approach to sex, love and comedy.
It’s not easy to like Mel (Madeleine Sami) and Jen (Jackie van Beek). The best friends – brought together by the one cheating boyfriend – have made it their career calling to help facilitate the end of relationships through all kinds of farfetched scenarios. There are mock kidnappings. Simulated affairs. In one hand-over-face excruciating scene, the pair (dressed in police uniforms) announce the (fake) death of a wife and mother. At her birthday celebration. In front of her children.
These scenarios are all done through that type of deadpan, Kiwi humour that has made the likes of The Flight of the Conchords and Hunt for the Wilder’s People director Taika Waititi world-renowned names. While at first mildly amusing, the shtick quickly becomes tiresome when it is apparent that there in not enough material to sustain a 90 min feature. Moments of innovation do feature, such as a music sequence inspired by Celine Dion’s 90s hit “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now”. Yet such moments are few and far between.
Things get really icky when the 35-year-old Mel begins a sexual relationship with barely legal teen Jordan (James Rolleston). Films involving sexual relationships with underage (or near that) young men have become near common place of late, as exemplified in Call Me By Your Name and Simon Baker’s surf flick Breath. Yet when placed within the cruel confines of The Breaker Upperers, such a dynamic feels extremely uncomfortable. That one of the films worst and crude one-liners would stem from this scenario speaks for itself.
Sami and van Beek (who also write and direct) do have a strong chemistry that is very apparent from their first minutes on screen together. They also rely too heavily on immature shock value in hopes of conjuring a laugh, but mostly inspires groans. This is especially seen in the use of extended dance sequences, such as an impromptu striptease in a police station. Even worse is an embarrassing dance sequence to RnB hit “All My Life” that is eyerolling pathetic in its desperation to incite some sort of reaction. It’s the kind of stuff that fans of Adam Sandler or Marlon Wayans would chuckle at.
It is clear that Sami and van Beek wanted to present a progressive, taboo smashing female relationship comedy, and good on them. But let’s not mistake good intentions with good results. The Breaker Upperers may have hoped to be the zany Kiwi cousin of Bridesmaids. Instead it’s the permanently drunk, cynical and immature step sibling of I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry.