In the first five minutes of Jeff Rosenberg’s We Broke Up, his lead characters have fulfilled the promise of the title. From there, the conflict comes from pretending they’re still a couple so they can gut out a weekend at a wedding. The problem for Rosenberg’s movie is that it never adds any specificity to its central characters, so we don’t know what we’re supposed to care about beyond this is a long-term relationship coming to a close. This leads to the movie relying on the viewer to fill in the concept with their own experiences of ending a long-term relationship provided they have done so. This makes We Broke Up all concept—the idea of a break-up—rather than doing the work of detailing what that break up means to these individuals. Despite having a cast of strong actors, Rosenberg never gives them much to work with beyond a broad premise.
Doug (William Jackson Harper) and Lori (Aya Cash) have been dating for 10 years, but one day while going to pick up Chinese food, Doug asks Lori to marry him, and Lori vomits. We then cut to the aftermath of what was clearly a hard conversation where they decided to split up. However, that weekend they’re due to attend a wedding for Lori’s sister Bea (Sarah Bolger) and her fiancé Jayson (Tony Cavalero). To avoid stealing Bea’s thunder, Doug and Lori decide to keep their break-up a secret and pretend they’re still together. However, as the weekend progresses, the former couple still needs to unpack their emotional baggage and sort out if splitting up was the right decision.
Rosenberg makes a bizarre decision from the beginning of his movie to cut around the breakup and use it as a reveal later in the movie. This is a kind of story that doesn’t work well as a mystery. We’re not puzzled to the details of the breakup and the movie makes no attempt to dangle the reveal ahead of us, so instead it plays like a wrongheaded editing choice where Rosenberg is trying to maximize the emotional impact of the breakup at the expense of character investment. Without understanding the contours of Doug and Lori’s relationship, they simply exist as an every-couple, and we’re supposed to pour our emotions and opinions into this container of an idea rather than understanding these people as individuals.
Throughout the entire film, there’s no specificity to Doug and Lori’s lengthy relationship. Because they’re in post-breakup mode, there’s only awkwardness, so we’re unsure if we’re supposed to hope for these two to get back together or if we’re supposed to understand that they’re better off apart. The weight of the concept makes it feel like Doug and Lori are two people who don’t have a past even though that past is supposed to provide weight to the breaking of their relationship. When you’re with someone with ten years and it’s over, that’s a real loss, but in We Broke Up, Doug and Lori could have been together for six months or a year and it would be the same movie because we never understand who they were as a couple or apart. The breakup defines them completely, and so we can only invest in them insofar as we understand the concept of a breakup.
And that’s a real shame because Rosenberg has a great cast at his disposal. As we saw from The Good Place and You’re the Worst, Harper and Cash, respectively, are actors who can give you all the rich contours and nuances of a relationship, especially a relationship that has hit the rocks. They’re two gifted actors and Rosenberg has surrounded them with other good performers including welcome 90s TV actors like Peri Gilpin (Fraiser) and Larisa Oleynik (The Secret Life of Alex Mack), but We Broke Up frequently devolves into awkward situations between Doug and Lori with the occasional nod that Bea and Jayson, despite their rushed wedding, may be on stronger footing as a couple because chemistry isn’t determined by units of time.
We Broke Up isn’t a horrible film as much as it’s a disappointing one. The premise of pretending you’re a couple is solid enough for an 80-minute dramedy, and Rosenberg has the right actors to tell this story. The problem is that the story isn’t really there because the characters aren’t there. For example, if two people have been together for ten years and have never even broached the subject of marriage, then what does that say about them? We Broke Up doesn’t seem inclined to even consider that question or any others about why this couple matters beyond concluding that it’s sad when long-term couples break up.
Rating: C-