In Lake Bell’s second feature effort as writer-director-star, “I Do … Until I Don’t,” three married couples in the sleepy Florida town of Vero Beach have their lives upended when a filmmaker from the BBC arrives to make a documentary about marriage.
Actually, it’s a documentary against marriage. The premise: Since human lifespans have become so much longer over the centuries, marriage should now be seven years contractually, with an option to renew every seven years.
It’s an angst-ridden, sometimes contrived film, but it features Paul Reiser on a motorcycle, a full-blown meltdown from Mary Steenburgen, and the odd pairing of Bell and Ed Helms as husband and wife. Whoever saw them as a couple?
But Bell, as in her first film, “In a World …,” finds warmth and compassion in these couples’ problems, and the result is a feel-good, almost gentle comedy.
The pretentious, manipulative British filmmaker, Vivian (Dolly Wells), first finds a so-called typical couple, Alice (Bell) and Noah (Helms). Their curtain-blinds business is failing, and they’re about to mark 10 years into a marriage that has so far not produced any children (Noah has a phone app to track Alice’s ovulation schedule).
Alice has been going through the motions in the marriage, but doesn’t quite know why she is not happy. Vivian’s intrusion in their lives gives a voice to Alice’s pain, stunning Noah — he had no clue.
Meanwhile, Vivian is tracking two other couples: Cybil (Steenburgen) and Harvey (Reiser), who have been married 31 years, rarely have sex or a conversation without sarcastic putdowns, and barely hear from their daughter living in Miami. Then there’s Alice’s sister Fanny (Amber Heard) and Zander (Wyatt Cenac), an interracial couple who have an open marriage.
A lot of dysfunctional, meaty material for any documentary filmmaker, but Vivian’s premise soon is in danger because far from proving that these people need a contractual out after a seven-year itch, she is actually helping them rediscover long-buried love and tenderness. Now what?
“I Do … Until I Don’t” is a play-it-safe film, with its chaos a little too controlled. But Bell’s examination of the institution of marriage has it insights, and there are laughs.
Plus, what other film would have Paul Reiser head to a “happy ending” massage parlor (armed with a gift certificate given to him by his wife), and encounter Lake Bell, on her first and only day on the job, as the world’s worst masseuse?
MOVIE REVIEW
“I Do … Until I Don’t”
Grade: B
Starring Lake Bell, Ed Helms and Mary Steenburgen. Directed by Lake Bell.
Rated R for sexual material and language. Check listings for theaters. 1 hour, 43 minutes.
Bottom line: A film about marriage that has its chaos a little too controlled
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