Breaking Upwards
'Breaking Upwards' explores a young, real-life New York couple who, four years in and battling codependency, decide to intricately strategize their own break up. Based on an actual experiment devised by director/actor Daryl Wein and actress Zoe Lister-Jones, the film loosely interprets a year in their lives exploring alternatives to monogamy, and the madness that ensues. An uncensored look at young love, lust, and the pangs of codependency, 'Breaking Upwards' follows its characters as they navigate each others' emotions across the city they love. It begs the question: is it ever possible to grow apart together?
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- Cast:
- Zoe Lister-Jones , Daryl Wein , Julie White , Andrea Martin , Peter Friedman , LaChanze , Ebon Moss-Bachrach
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Reviews
Good concept, poorly executed.
Absolutely Fantastic
This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.
Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.
I loved this film. I'm not a big "indie" buff but I found myself pleasantly surprised.The story line was touching. At times you wanted to hate Zoe, making the movie all the more enjoyable. Characters with flaws, even flaws that annoy the hell out of the audience, are needed sometimes. I felt like these were real people, largely due to the script and the acting. (both of which were great.) This was a story of love: confused, strange love. But I highly enjoyed it regardless.Daryl Wein has an immense amount of talent and knows how to beautifully tell a story.
Unattractive leads, a boring story and characters who all sound like they're rejects from a bad Woody Allen script combine to make this film unwatchable. The filmmakers display an incredible lack of talent from their slight plot to their casting failures to their inability to even make the film look good. In this era of cheap digital production there is no excuse for a film looking as bad as this. Who did their lighting? Obviously their egos got in the way of getting better actors for the leads, but did no one point out the meandering story or see in the dailies how bad the film was shot? Maybe friends aren't just those who'll give you money to make a film. Maybe real friends are those who tell you you're on the wrong path.
Ah, kids.My primary reaction watching "Breaking Upwards" was that I'm....old. OK, so I'm only 35, but this movie made 23 feel like a looong time ago. It follows the travails of two younguns struggling with a waning relationship while at the same time scared to cut loose altogether. They instead try to go at relationship resuscitation in an ordered, spreadsheet fashion, scheduling days apart and establishing ground rules. By the time the film is over, you just want to say "break up already, it's not that bad....trust me, you'll find someone else." I have a toddler and my wife is pregnant with our second child. I will have 23 year old kids someday, and I know from experience that things only seem to not be a big deal once you're old enough to look back at them -- everything seems important while you're in the middle of it. Therefore, out of respect to the filmmakers, and my own children, I don't want to dismiss the emotions in this movie as being unimportant just because it's kids feeling them. But my wife and I spent more time being amused by the two lovers in this movie than feeling empathy for them.A handful of fairly well-known stage actors appear in supporting roles, like Pablo Schreiber (brother of Liev), Peter Friedman, Andrea Martin and Julie White, who plays one of the most awful, overbearing Jewish mothers ever committed to film.This movie is likable but immature.Grade: B
It's cute and entertaining and features some good acting, especially by the parents, but it contains some obvious flaws. First, there is no conflict development. The movie opens up with us seeing a few quick shots of how the relationship is stale, and then it immediately moves into them strategizing their breakup. Second, both Daryl and Zoe are supposed to be 23 years old. This jars with their lifestyle, in that they share a fancy west village apartment together, portray themselves as mature, working professionals, have been in a serious relationship together for four years, and have all the fears and phobias that seem to strike mid-to-late-twenties couples. And yet, they're only a year out of college? There are also some cliché moments, such as Zoe deciding at the spur of the moment to buy a little dog; Daryl having the token gay brother; and Daryl getting offered an amazing job in another city that ultimately causes the couple to split (at least, for now). Nonetheless, the ending is appropriate, in that it shows that both Daryl and Zoe still love each other but need to move forward in their lives, giving hope that the relationship may not really be over (a resolution you longed for, since they had obviously reached a stale point in the relationship but display a love for each other that neither might realistically find again).