SPLITSVILLE (2025) review

written by: Michael Angelo Covino and Kyle Marvin
produced by: Emily Korteweg, Michael Angelo Covino, Kyle Marvin, Ryan Heller, Jeff Deutchman, Dakota Johnson, Ro Donnelly & Samantha Racanelli
directed by: Michael Angelo Covino
rated: R (for language throughout, sexual content and graphic nudity)
runtime: 104 min.
U.S. release date: September 5, 2025

“Splitsville” is a movie about open relationships that strangely has very little to say about open relationships. It’s being billed as “an unromantic comedy”, and while that’s true, I’d suggest changing that to “an unfunny comedy”. Directed by Michael Angelo Covino, who co-wrote the screenplay with Kyle Marvin, both of whom star as two of the four protagonists, in a film that is more concerned with physical comedy and quick laughs than offering anything of substance on the matter. That being said, the physical comedy is indeed funny, as are some sequences between the two couples. The material written for two of the most beautiful women acting today may be woefully underwritten, but they nevertheless make the most of it.

The movie opens with a seemingly happy married couple driving to meet their richer married friends Julie (Dakota Johnson) and Paul (Covino) at their lavish lake house in the Hamptons. As we meet high school gym teacher Carey (Martin) and his life coach wife, Ashley (Adria Arjona), they are singing along to Kenny Loggins and Stevie Nicks, “Whenever I Call You Friend,” and they seem like a synchronized couple. But something is off with these two.

We first get that indication when it seems that Carey and Ashley are not on the same page in their relationship. She wants to be more sexually adventurous, and he’s interested in having a baby. Ashley offers a hand-job while Carey is at the wheel, which results in a fatal accident for another driver and a dick joke.

Back in the car, Ashley shares that she wants “out.” Carey thinks she means out of the vehicle, but when he realizes she’s referring to their marriage (of 14 months), he pulls over, and after a brief exchange, he exits and runs across the road into a nearby field. We watch as a despondent Carey runs through a variety of terrain (tall grass, swampy waters, and meadows), and then the film’s title is slapped across the bottom of the screen in large letters. Whether or not you find this opening funny will determine if you will enjoy the rest of “Splitsville.”

Once Carey arrives at Julie and Paul’s place, disheveled and exhausted, Paul suggests that he clean up, use their shower, and check for ticks. As Carey showers, Paul checks on him and joins him in the shower to help him check any hard-to-get-to spots. Julie enters the bathroom and initiates a discussion while both men are still in the shower. Again, this is all supposed to be funny, but more than anything, it just comes across as bizarre and awkward. It’s mentioned that Paul and Carey have been friends since childhood, but there’s no indication they’re that close.

Not long after that, Julie and Paul reveal their secret to happiness: they have an open marriage. They claim that the lack of guilt and stigma around affairs has been freeing and has made their relationship stronger. However, neither of them provides any examples of this happening in their marriage. Carey is obviously surprised, and becomes even more surprised when Julie cuddles up next to him on the couch where they’re all sitting. Is she doing this to get a rise and/or reaction out of either of them? Does it matter which one she titillates or angers?

The next day, Paul is absent, having left for the city to attend to some real estate business, leaving Julie at home with Carey. Julie doesn’t necessarily come across as a nymphomaniac, but she makes it clear that Paul often leaves her alone, and she believes he must be seeing someone else there. Why she has never verified this with Paul, since they have an open marriage, is puzzling. With the two alone and Carey’s own marriage on indefinite hiatus, he and Julie have sex.

When Paul returns, Carey makes a point to matter-of-factly inform his friend that he’s had sex with his wife. Paul instinctively slaps Carey. This is followed by a slapping match between the two men. This escalates to wrestling into different rooms and downstairs, with the two picking up whatever objects they can find along the way for weapons and destroying furniture in just about every room.

Clearly, this “open marriage” idea has some limitations for Paul. It’s all good until his best friend has sex with his wife. Of course, one can’t help but wonder what kind of friend sleeps with his best friend’s wife? Or what kind of wife sleeps with her husband’s best friend? Well, it’s not like Covino and Marvin give us much time to get to know Carey, but from what we can tell, both he and Paul are somewhere on the man-child spectrum.

That being said, the fight between Carey and Paul is quite an impressive and intentionally sloppy action sequence. It’s not necessarily something I was expecting in a movie about the break-up of two heterosexual marriages. Still, cinematographer Adam Newport-Berra (who lensed last year’s “Blink Twice” and “The Last Black Man in San Francisco”) and editor Sara Shaw (who worked on Covino and Marvin’s “The Climb” from 2019) go all out, capturing the melee from all angles. It’s one of the best shot action sequences I’ve seen all year. In fact, their work throughout the film proves to be the one standout of “Splitsville”, often incorporating what feels like multiple long takes that make interior shots float smoothly around the characters.

But enough about the guys, what about their wives? Unfortunately, both female characters are shortchanged in their underwritten roles, since so much time is spent with these man-children. We eventually return to Ashley and learn the state of her marriage with Carey. When she learns that Carey had sex with Julie, she turns their home into an Airbnb, which becomes a turnstile for the men she dates has sex with; some of them turn their house into an extended stay dormitory. It’s fun watching Arjona in the role, which is a more overtly comedic one than Johnson’s. Both women end up having much more interesting roles than their male costars, which is more a testament to their talent than anything else.

My favorite character turned out to be Julie and Paul’s young son, Russ (Simon Webster, from the MGM+ series “From”), whose actions throughout seem to be channeling a way to either draw the attention of the adults in his life or get as far away from them as possible.

In the end, “Splitsville” proves to be a frustrating watch, as it offers little that is thought-provoking about the subject of open marriages. It just seems like the whole idea was, “hey, let’s have these two annoying idiots totally lose it, while their wives carry on despite their asinine behavior”. Some will thoroughly enjoy the humor that Covino and Marvin offer here, and I’ll admit that I chuckled a few times, but ultimately, it doesn’t amount to much, and it’s not something I’ll think much about afterwards.

RATING: **