Review: THE BREAKER UPPERERS

Jen and Mel run the titular service by which they are hired to decisively break couples up. Already the premise will strike anyone who has been in a relationship. They start and they end and when they end one always wants to hang on and the other always wants a clear rupture. When you think about it even the "let's stay friends" line is always from the dropper and can do more damage to the communication that the worst outright rejection. If you could just get someone else to step in and do it for you .... what you wouldn't pay.

This means that the pair are hired by the worst of the ones in the relationship and their measures traverse the waterfront of dump from the gentle to the brutal. What could go wrong? Just one moment of line-crossing kindness that opens a world of chaos as Mel starts showing sympathy. This feeling and the swelling problems gestating from its spark are the basis of the plot of this film as Jen and Mel are forced to question their own motives and see the friendship beneath them.

Sounds too warm n fuzzy? Well, as Mel says to a former mark when the latter has assured her that they will never see each other later: "this is New Zealand". If you've ever had a friend from New Zealand ("this is Australia!") you will know the routine of deadpan gallows humour, bursting understatement and the kind of sweetness that you always suspect is what poison tastes like. Like them, this film loudly and joyfully treads on sexual mores, race politics, ageism, consumerism, self loathing and narcissism and it does all that because it must. As a result this is one of the most effortlessly funny films you'll see this year.

Writers/leads Jackie Van Beek and Madeleine Sami keep things on a constant boil and provide a studied Jack Sprat pairing. Moments of competitive professionalism are a joy. James Rolleston as the sperm canon footballer who is impossible not to love owns his every shot (so to speak). Celia Pacquola is the perfect choice for the disastrous Annie.

If you see a trailer for this and go in expecting something satirical and dark you will have to do your own panning for it. The approach here is far more understated and does beg some indulgence.Take it easy and you get the lot. Ask for classic black comedy and you will leave poor.