Lake Bell wrote, directed and starred in I Do…Until I Don’t. The movie focuses on three couples and a British documentarian trying to push a thesis that marriage should be a renewable contract instead of a lifetime commitment because the institution is inherently flawed. If you enjoyed her first film, In a World…, rewatch it or just watch the deleted scenes of this film because I Do…Until I Don’t is dreadful.
I almost saw I Do…Until I Don’t in theaters until I noticed that it was going to be pulled after a week so I deprioritized it and put it in my queue. This is the kind of film where a couple has money problems, but interrupt customers to have meaningful conversations about their relationship. Two of the women must be Prince’s mom from When Doves Cry because they were never satisfied and incessantly sniping at their spouses. The women need the reassurance and guiding hand of their men to realize how great everything is in their relationships. The solution to one woman’s unhappiness is to have a guy pick her up and take her away because the implicit message is that the source of her unhappiness is that she hasn’t had a good shag in awhile. Lake Bell’s character is the worst because how is she someone who is more adept physically, but lacks so much confidence and is entirely too awkward.
At least I Do…Until I Don’t wasn’t entirely cliché by not having the older couple be the younger two couples parents. Also when we finally meet the freshly bailed out, covered in tattoos boyfriend, he is delightfully the opposite of what we expect. The most unexpectedly funny scene was any scene involving the sex workers, which seems rife with 1970s stereotypes, but the two actors are just so committed and funny that I have to confess that I would have been happy if they hijacked the entire film.
Mary Steenburger delivers a better, more nuanced performance than I Do…Until I Don’t deserved. She is the only actor who plays her character on multiple levels: the superficial caustic wife, the easily wounded soul underneath and the vaguely yearning for something more woman who has it all. By the end, she brings all these elements of her character’s personality together and makes the ending more meaningful than the material warrants. Paul Reiser does his husband shtick, which is always enjoyable and iconic, opposite her so he benefits from the proximity.
Amber Heard was incredibly committed to her trite hippie woman character. She and Wyatt Cenac’s characters probably had the best relationship, but once again, it is played for laughs, not credibility. Ed Helms does his thing, but if you’re a fan, it is not worth slogging through this mess. Watch him doing his laundry or something.
I Do…Until I Don’t is a tremendous disappointment, and if you do watch it, don’t say that I didn’t warn you that the whole enterprise was largely hackneyed and deeply unfunny. Hopefully Bell is just going through a sophomore slump, but it does not bode well for the independent filmmaker.