10th posting

Movie Review

Who wouldn’t be willing to go to paradise to save your marriage? This was the premise used by Cynthia and Jason to convince three other couples into joining them for an exotic getaway. Couples Retreat is a comedy directed by Peter Billingsley and written by Vince Vaughn, Jon Favreau and Dana Fox, who have all worked together in the past. This fictional film is an enjoyable adventure to the incredibly beautiful setting of Bora Bora. Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau (actors in this movie) add a humorous touch to the film, and with the extremely young and attractive wives, it creates a typical man-directed film. 

One would remember Peter Billingsley as the child actor turned producer/director who played Ralphie in A Christmas Story. He has a lifetime of experience in filmmaking and producing movies since he’s been in Hollywood most of his life. He has an innate ability to create hilariously funny scenes. Peter was also behind the scenes as an executive producer in the movie Iron Man directed by Jon Favreau, who actually plays Joey in Couples Retreat.

“It looks like a screensaver!” says actor Jon Favreau as Joey when they arrive at Eden resort at Bora Bora. But what they didn’t know is that they’re not going to be undergoing the typical free-to-do-what-you-want schedule. Instead, when obtaining the agenda brochure from the Eden Resort receptionist they found otherwise. Although, Cynthia and Jason, the one’s driving the plan, already knew about this so called agenda of waking up at 6 A.M. and doing couple’s skill building classes and experiencing the French Fabio of yoga instructors, the other three couples remain clueless. The humor and hilarity of the misunderstanding generates the adventure that the couples will go through.            

Couples Retreat is far from an immaculate film, but is a light-hearted entertaining movie that teaches a lesson. Learning to live with your spouse by staying true to yourself is one of the messages that I perceived from watching this film. After the couples got over the agenda problem things got interesting, funny and free. They started to loosen up and have fun with it. The film accomplishes their goal by creating a true-to-life relevant and funny story line. Since the people who made this film were familiar with each other, by default, they added another success to their list of achievements.