Tropic blunder

A trip to Tahiti or some other tropical paradise sounds really good right about now. So besides the bit of jealousy I felt watching the four couples in this film frolic on the beach, I also sympathized with their predicament—being stuck going to therapy and doing yoga at the crack of dawn is not my idea of a vacation.

Vince Vaughn is the main draw here, because without him—and his sidekick co-screenwriter, Jon Favreau—this would be 100-percent chick flick. As it is, it’s still precisely that, but with some solid comedy thrown in to break up all the lovey-dovey stuff.

We’re introduced to four couples during a kid’s birthday party. One of the pairs—Jason and Cynthia (Jason Bateman and Kristen Bell)—has created a slideshow of a trip to “Eden” they’ve been planning. The thing is they’re considering getting a divorce and this trip is their last chance, and if the other three couples don’t go with them, like next week, then they can’t go.

The plot starts out flimsy and remains that way through the rest of the film. Obviously all four couples drop a couple thou, leave their jobs and kids at the drop of a hat and go to Eden, which is run by hard-handed guru Marcel (Jean Reno). They are threatened to be kicked off the island numerous times for not “following the rules,” and the beach frolicking is mostly limited to organized activities like yoga and stripping for no apparent reason except for a Vaughn punch line.

While the story is a bit lacking, the portions during couples therapy are quite revelatory. Some of the people who seem perfect maybe aren’t, and issues are brought up that go beyond the surface level of the film. It’s here, in the interconnecting between mates, that the movie makes some strides, although small, toward decent filmmaking.

But the surface is never quite broken, as therapy sessions are kept short and issues such as cheating and feeling inadequate are glossed over in favor of drinks and island fun. But at least there are a few bits of honesty sprinkled in—we are all flawed, we all have things we can work on, nobody is perfect.

Anyone up for a trip to Tahiti?