Splitsville (dir. Michael Angelo Covino)

by Jack Martin | Mar 26, 2026

Certificate: 15

Running Time: 105 mins

UK Distributor: Universal Pictures

UK Release Date: 27 March 2026

WHO’S IN SPLITSVILLE?

Kyle Marvin, Adria Arjona, Michael Angelo Covino, Dakota Johnson, Nicholas Braun, David Castañeda, O-T Fagbenle, Charlie Gillespie, Simon Webster, Nahéma Ricci, Tyrone Benskin, Letitia Brookes, Jessika Mathurin, Stephen Adekolu

WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?

Michael Angelo Covino (director, writer, producer), Kyle Marvin (writer, producer), Jeff Deutchman, Ro Donnelly, Ryan Heller, Dakota Johnson, Emily Korteweg and Samantha Racanelli (producers), Dabney Morris and David Wingo (composers), Adam Newport-Berra (cinematographer), Sara Shaw (editor)

WHAT’S IT ABOUT?

Two couples find themselves caught in more than a few compromising situations…

WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON SPLITSVILLE?

Comedy can come from many things, but slapstick in particular is often derided from other people’s misfortune. The absurdity of watching someone be physically hurt, emotionally devastated or just simply tripping up over something can trigger an unshakeable urge to laugh that we wouldn’t exactly do if such things happened in real life (unless you happen to be a full-blown psychopath). Call it a coping mechanism, or even a touch of sadism, but all the audience can do when witnessing a character go through all kinds of hardship is laugh their asses off.

Splitsville, the latest film from director, co-writer and co-star Michael Angelo Covino, recognises clear as day how slapstick is essential to making people laugh, so long as it’s done correctly. Luckily, Covino and fellow co-writer and co-star Kyle Marvin also know a thing or two about how to tackle some tender interpersonal relationship issues, as they were able to prove with their previous film The Climb, and by combining that devastation with classic screwball physicality they’ve ensured that their follow-up is a slapstick riot that is smart and funny in ways that a lot of modern comedies aren’t.

Marvin plays Carey, who we first meet as he and his wife Ashley (Adria Arjona) are driving to visit his best friend Paul (Covino) and his spouse Julie (Dakota Johnson). After a shocking roadside accident, Ashley suddenly decides she wants a divorce, admitting to Carey that she’s been repeatedly unfaithful and wants to further explore her promiscuity, leaving him understandably devastated but also running like hell away from the initial conversation. Upon finally reaching Paul and Julie’s beach house and confiding in them about his impending separation, Carey is shocked to learn that the couple have adopted an open relationship that allows them to be with other partners guilt-free, and taking advantage of that fact Carey and Julie end up sleeping together when Paul is called away on business. However, it’s when Carey casually tells Paul about their extra-marital hookup that the situation becomes a lot more complex than any of them had realised.

This is largely where the slapstick portion of Splitsville comes into the frame, and both Covino and Marvin execute it with sharp precision that highlights the painful yet hilarious realism of it all. These aren’t two skilled fighters laying into each other like foes in an action movie, they’re just a couple of schlubby guys driven purely by emotion, as their first and most prolonged scuffle makes abundantly clear wherein every slap, punch, kick, flip, dodge etc that they dish out to each other lands with a pathetic thud. Making it funnier is the fact that Covino and Marvin didn’t use stunt doubles for this film, instead performing each dangerous and heavily choreographed feat entirely in-camera, a notion that makes the slapstick even funnier because you know for a fact that these two really are going at each other rather than letting more skilled professionals do the work for them.

But the humour is not just relegated to the physical, as the writers are also able to mine loads of screwball comedy from the sheer awkwardness of the situation, as well as the petulant and often childish behaviour that all parties, but primarily the men, display here. Both Carey and Paul are, in their own ways, deeply insecure man-children whose shared desperation to retain the loves in their life borders on pathetic, even though both Ashley and Julie are arguably just as confused as their partners are. Yet there isn’t much demonisation among them – save for Paul, whose rather scummy business practises do make him unforgivable in certain aspects – as the script treats all four as equal corners of this love square, each bringing something of comedic value to the table while also feeling expanded upon just enough to get a sense of their much more internalised anxieties. The actors of course elevate the material to greater heights, particularly Arjona and Johnson who capitalise on their natural screen charisma for some of the film’s most understated laughs, though it helps that the material itself is already pretty solid.

On occasion, though, Splitsville will stretch beyond its limits. Much like The Climb, Covino and Marvin’s script splits itself into distinct chapters named after certain divorce terms, but here it doesn’t feel wholly necessary as the narrative already works fine enough as one linear story, even with a few time jumps here and there. It also features moments between certain characters where, amidst everything else that’s been unfolding around them, you really question why they would even do such things when they know full well that they’re bound to make things far worse than they already are. Of course, this being the kind of farcical comedy that it is, you’re clearly not meant to think about these things too hard and instead just laugh at the ridiculousness of it all, but once in a while that thought will come in your head as to whether or not these people are simply self-destructive or just plain dumb.

Again, though, it hardly matters if you’re able to laugh along with the rest of it, and Splitsville makes it very easy for that to be the case. Not only is it a very funny movie with plenty of physical and psychological humour to go about, but Covino and Marvin also approach it with a classic comedic mindset that knows all the best tricks to make the viewer laugh despite the constant misery.

SO, TO SUM UP…

Splitsville is a very funny slapstick-heavy screwball comedy which delivers plenty of laughs from the physical and thematic misery of its central characters, as well as the growing awkwardness of their shared situation.