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Although it’s already been two weeks since I survived Dane Cook’s Good Luck Chuck, I was still a little bit reluctant to see The Heartbreak Kid. You see, after trauma like that, sometimes it’s hard to get back on the outrageous-romantic-comedy horse again. But, then again, it’s often best to go into movies like the Farrelly Brothers’ latest comedy, The Heartbreak Kid, with low expectations—and perhaps even a bit of fear—because you’ve got a better chance of being pleasantly surprised. And I was—at least for a while.
The Heartbreak Kid stars Ben Stiller as Eddie Cantrow, a 40-year-old bachelor who’s managed to find all kinds of excuses for not marrying anyone he dates. After his ex-girlfriend’s wedding, though, Eddie starts feeling like it’s time to settle down—and that’s when he meets beautiful blonde Lila (Malin Akerman).
For a while, the relationship blossoms, and the laughs are nearly non-stop. Stiller manages to tone down all those crazy Ben-Stiller-like things that he does (which stopped being funny years ago), and he’s actually a likeable guy. And as for Akerman, well, you can’t help but wonder if the Farrellys’ beloved Cameron Diaz was booked—so they hired some other lovably ditzy blonde who can act just like Cam. But it works. The two of them are cute—in a goofy sort of way.
But then, six weeks after they meet, Lila finds out that her job is moving her to Rotterdam. The only way for Eddie to keep her in San Francisco is to marry her—and, with the encouragement of his dad (Jerry Stiller) and his best friend, Mac (Rob Corddry), that’s exactly what he does.
After the wedding, however, everything changes. As Eddie and Lila head to Mexico for their honeymoon, it suddenly becomes painfully clear that Eddie knows nothing about the woman he married. He had no idea, for instance, that she’s totally nuts. He starts to think that he may have made a mistake in marrying Lila—and after he meets Miranda (Michelle Monaghan), he’s positive he made a mistake.
It’s around this time that things start to decline for The Heartbreak Kid. Shortly after Eddie starts ditching his conveniently-sunburned wife to hang out with Miranda and her kooky family, the laughs gradually become fewer and farther between—and it’s only downhill from there. Stiller breaks loose into the usual crazy-Ben-Stiller act (if you’ve seen the trailer, you know what I mean), and, not long after that, the story derails completely. It then gets more and more bizarre and less and less funny until it finally ends—about a half hour later than it should have.
Had the Farrellys been able to rein Stiller in for the entire movie—and had they reworked that bizarre last half hour—The Heartbreak Kid could have been a fun, There’s Something About Mary-like comedy. As it is, it’s still good for a few hearty laughs (and, fortunately, Dane Cook isn’t in it), but, unfortunately, it’s far from the Farrellys at their best.
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