The Heartbreak Kid (2007) - Movie Review

The Heartbreak Kid (2007) 

Cast : Ben Stiller, Malin Akerman, Michelle Monahan

Directed by Bob and Peter Farrelly

Review by Zulfiqar - Rating  (3/5)

            Farrelly brothers’ method-in-madness comedy is enjoyable to say the least when it works. And most of the time it works. In ‘Heartbreak Kid’, they follow their simple formula of describing the misadventures of a nerd in his romantic pursuits.

            Eddie (Ben Stiller), a sports-shop owner in the up-market area of San Francisco, is out fishing for the perfect girl. He is a loser in terms of amour-al issues and possesses a nice heart that he doesn’t mind attending a past fiancee’s wedding on valentine’s day. His father (Jerry Stiller) cuss-advises him to get hitched with the right girl and he feels he meets her in the face of Lila (Malin Akerman), the girl whose purse he tries to futilely get back from the robber robbing her. One thing leads to another and he is on his honeymoon with his newly wedded wife to Mexico. But cupid mischievously sets foot and he meets Miranda (Michelle Monahan), while on the vacation. The thing which propels for him to fall for her is the new fountain of gasping revelations about the past of Lila.

            This is where Farrellys spin their yarn perfectly. Though the story is based on the famous comedy of the same name, the heart of the movie is Farrelly’s obnoxious brand of comedy. Malin Akerman’s Lila throws her revelations like accusations on Eddie, while he stupidly watches and sets his teeth against. Miranda’s family and a set of twins at the vacation draw their own derivations of various acts of Eddie and at the end, blames him for the mistaken picture and also for the mistakes. Ben Stiller shines in the way he makes the whole mistake thing gel with his way of reacting to subtle references. He may look like having shallowness in his character, but then maybe human erring sometimes need to be cut a slack. He makes the effort for the relationship to work, albeit a shallow one, but then like a base human, goes by the scent of the pheromones rather than morals. Sometimes, it looks weirdly and funnily right when his father expostulates that the latter’s complaint of his wife singing a lot and wants to have sex while on their honeymoon is ridiculous.

            Farrellys’ world of comedy has an utopian genre, where the losers or the nerds while going through their routines either gain the girl or live in their losses, without being aware of it. Their genius comedy was ‘kingpin’, which had a wonderful lead and a terrific villain with the plot weirdly and hilariously funny and at the same time heartfelt. Same was the case with their classic ‘something about Mary’. Though his next string of movies weren’t of that stature, they, however, were human and utterly funny.

            ‘Heartbreak kid’ follows in the same way, but the hilarious and weird gags have a nonstop way of unfolding. It starts from the way eddie is seated at the kids’ table, while the whole adult gang is paired and utterly happy. Even the kids, not only ruffle his feathers, but joke on him like he is a nobody. Malin Akerman’s Lila is creepy-fun in the way she abuses him for her own faults. She shines in the way she becomes an embarrassing annoyance. Uncle Tito at the Mexican resort ‘cry-wolf’s his jokes on Eddie, that it becomes a quizzing round of when he isn’t joking. However, the movie as with their other flicks resorts to some profane gags, which in a way overkills the quaint effect.

            About the romance and finding the right partner, Eddie suffers the pangs of dipping the toe at the start. When his friend suggests he should take the plunge to know the aftermath, he unwittingly takes a couple of shots at it. At the end, he is drawn out as a fickle fellow with wavering interests, but then it is such one Eddie’s life. Life isn’t all regular order of things. When we want someone to compare our faults in romance and its aftermath, we can turn to Eddie. He isn’t a learning experience, but a balming one.