Kid fails to deliver on potential

October 8, 2007 —

The Farrelly brothers have made it apparent over their careers that they have a vague understanding of comedy with movies such as Kingpin, There's Something About Mary and Me, Myself and Irene. In their most recent venture, The Heartbreak Kid, their understanding seems to be maturing, until the film's colossal moment of regression.

Having seen a fair amount of their comedies, I had preconceptions going into Kid - I expected to laugh some, but ultimately leave disappointed. While that ended up being mostly accurate, I was somewhat surprised during the film. For the better part of it, I was laughing more than I thought I would at a somewhat tamed down Farrelly experience, the taming-down being a good thing. I sat there not necessarily laughing out loud throughout much of the film, but chuckling or smiling at the more minute details.

The movie is about Eddie Cantrow (Ben Stiller), a man who has never married and is quickly approaching 40. We see him meet what seems to be the perfect woman (Malin Akerman) and rush into marriage at the behest of his friend and father (who is played by Stiller's real-life father Jerry). On their honeymoon, however, Eddie begins to see flaws in his new wife that didn't seem present days before and soon meets another woman (Michelle Monoghan) whom he starts to fall for.

The Farrelly brothers choose to subdue their humor amidst their usual absurdist circumstances. Why this works so well is because they seem to have finally grasped the humor of awkwardness and subtlety. This makes the comedy all the stronger because this is the humor of real life.

What makes the situations all the more amusing is Stiller himself, who doesn't overact Eddie so that he remains nearly real and somewhat convincing. I was reminded of Stiller's roles in Meet the Parents (the first two-thirds of the film) and his less appreciated Keeping the Faith, which might not have been a success, but proved the actor capable of something more than over-the-top comedy. I actually found myself impressed by Stiller's control of his smaller nuances - simple facial expressions, well-timed and concise line delivery, etc. What's more, I came very close to sympathizing with Stiller's Eddie at various points.

Apparently, however, the Farrellys either lost sight of their understanding at some point, or just chose to ignore it and go back to what they usually do - utter ridiculousness. Of course, this occurred during the "truth is revealed" moment common to not just Farrelly brother comedies, but most comedies of the last decade or more. It is often in this moment that many comedies fail to deliver the true goods. They set up a base level of disbelief that I can accept, but then push beyond that level just as I get comfortable with it. This is the very reason Judd Apatow's comedies often succeed: they remain grounded in base absurdist levels.

Maybe the Farrelly brothers simply don't want to conform their films to this standard, however, or maybe I fail to recognize the humor of this utter ridiculousness because most of the audience seemed to still find Kid amusing after the turn. I just cannot wrap my head around how a film continues to be amusing when its characters begin to lose all sense of believability so their decisions cease to make any logical sense because of their extremities. This move also makes the film itself lose whatever sense of reality it once had.

What hurts Kid more is that, in order to support the script, Stiller has to revert to his over-the-top acting, which makes Eddie cease to exist at all. Worse yet, the very end of the film seems to negate what little meaning it had attempted to achieve only moments before - leaving me walking out to my car feeling as I predicted I would while walking in.