Splitsville

In the current landscape of cinema, the mid-budget comedy is a bit like a rare bird that keeps trying to fly into a closed window. We see these $20 million productions—too expensive to be "indie" but too small to be a "tentpole"—landing in theaters with a soft thud before being whisked away to a streaming service three weeks later. Michael Angelo Covino’s Splitsville is exactly that bird. It’s a sharp, often painful look at the "enlightened" modern relationship that somehow cost $20 million to make and returned about a tenth of that at the box office.

I caught this one on a rainy Tuesday while trying to assemble a Swedish bookshelf that was missing three crucial dowels, and honestly, the sheer frustration of that experience was the perfect primer for the emotional sandpaper Kyle Marvin and Michael Angelo Covino put their characters through.

The Gospel of the Open Marriage

The film follows Carey (Kyle Marvin), a guy whose entire personality can be described as "human golden retriever." When his wife, Ashley (Adria Arjona), asks for a divorce, he does what any self-respecting man-child does: he runs to his best friends. Paul (Michael Angelo Covino) and Julie (Dakota Johnson) are the "perfect" couple. They have the house, the vibe, and apparently, a rotating door of third-party sexual partners. They’ve cracked the code! They have an open marriage, and they’re very, very smug about it.

What follows is a classic comedy of errors filtered through a 2025 lens of "therapy-speak." This isn't the slapstick of the 90s; it’s a cringe-comedy built on the specific contemporary anxiety of trying to be "evolved." The humor comes from the friction between Carey’s traditional heartbreak and the hyper-logical, almost clinical way Paul and Julie discuss their trysts. Dakota Johnson is essentially the patron saint of "I’m too cool for this conversation" energy, and she plays Julie with a terrifyingly calm detachment that makes you wonder if she’s a genius or a sociopath.

Chemistry and Cringe

The real draw here is the established shorthand between Kyle Marvin and Michael Angelo Covino. If you saw their 2019 cult hit The Climb, you know they specialize in a very specific brand of toxic, co-dependent male friendship. In Splitsville, they lean further into the "unromantic comedy" tag. When Carey eventually "crosses the line"—a sequence involving a very awkward dinner and an even more awkward guest room—the film shifts from a satire of modern dating into a full-blown demolition derby of feelings.

Nicholas Braun pops up as Matt, delivering that signature "Cousin Greg" brand of stammering inadequacy that we’ve all come to expect from him since Succession. He represents the younger, even more "fluid" generation, and his presence acts as a hilarious mirror to Paul’s aging-hipster insecurities. Meanwhile, Adria Arjona handles the unenviable task of being the catalyst for the chaos, and she does it with a groundedness that the rest of the manic cast lacks. The movie treats monogamy like a dusty VCR—something some people still use, but everyone else is embarrassed for them.

Why It Vanished (And Why You Should Find It)

So, why did a movie with this much talent sink like a stone? For starters, the marketing campaign was a mess. NEON tried to sell it as a "raunchy romp," but it’s actually a fairly cynical deconstruction of why we can't have nice things. It’s also a victim of the "theatrical gap." In 2025, if a movie isn't a spectacle or a horror film, audiences have been trained to wait for the app.

Behind the scenes, the production was reportedly a breeze, which is often a curse for comedies; sometimes you need a little misery to make the jokes land. It’s a slickly produced film, utilizing the kind of bright, high-key lighting that screams "prestige sitcom," but the script has more teeth than the visuals suggest. Apparently, Kyle Marvin wrote the screenplay during the pandemic when divorce rates were spiking, and you can feel that "stuck-inside-with-my-thoughts" manic energy in every scene.

The budget is the real head-scratcher. $20 million is a lot for a movie where people mostly stand in kitchens and talk about their feelings. You can see the money in the location scouting and the casting, but it’s a testament to the inflated costs of "contemporary cinema" that a talky comedy needs to break $50 million just to see black ink.

Ultimately, Splitsville is a victim of its own niche. It’s too smart for the "beer and popcorn" crowd and too cynical for the "date night" crowd. It captures the 2025 cultural moment—where everyone is "doing the work" but nobody is actually happy—with uncomfortable precision. I enjoyed my time with these terrible people, even if I felt like I needed a shower and a marriage counselor afterward. If you’re a fan of cringe-inducing honesty and watching Michael Angelo Covino have a slow-motion nervous breakdown, it’s a journey worth taking. Just don't expect a happy ending; this is, as advertised, an unromantic comedy.