Couples Retreat Review

For a rom-com, Couples Retreat does an excellent job of making long-term relationships seem a dreadful chore. Three couples are tricked by a fourth, considering divorce, into attending relationship therapy on a paradise island staffed by funny foreigners with silly ways and nut-hugging bathing costumes, where they can proceed to bicker themselves daft. Not much thought seems to have been given to what should happen beyond that. The female leads, all proven fine comic actors, are reduced to bikini-filling shrews, while most of the set-ups are left without a punchline, typically ending abruptly with one of Vince Vaughn’s trademark stream-of-consciousness rants, which seemed a lot more charming in Swingers. There are a lot of very funny people working here, yet as a sum of their combined talents this falls astonishingly short.