A group of old friends gets together to broach a serious issue. This is a dramedy subgenre unto itself, and few attempts bring anything remarkably new to the table. That track record doesn’t bode well for Clea DuVall’s screenwriting/directorial debut The Intervention, but the ensemble ekes out an engaging comedy amidst multiple relationship dramas. The tight pacing is certainly indebted to the large ensemble, providing plenty of characters and drama to carry the script, but the bulk of the appeal in The Intervention revolves around the actors themselves.
In The Intervention, our cast of characters assemble at a Georgia summer home to stage an intervention for Ruby (Cobie Smulders) and Peter (Vincent Piazza), a couple whose marriage has devolved into aggressive micro-managing and constant bickering. The orchestrator of this intervention is their long-time friend Annie (Melanie Lynskey), a woman struggling with alcoholism and none-too-subtly trying to delay her marriage to Matt (Jason Ritter) for the fourth time. Rounding out the couple count are Jessie (DuVall) and Sarah (Natasha Lyonne)—a seemingly well-adjusted couple who, despite being together for three years, still don’t live together—and Jack (Ben Schwartz), a widower, and Lola (Alia Shawkat), his 22 year old art student casual girlfriend. As you can imagine, one intervention turns into multiple interventions, with each couple finding faults in the others and cruelly parading those problems around in defense of their own relationships.
The history between Clea DuVall and Natasha Lyonne (co-stars and love interests in But I’m a Cheerleader) makes their relationship here—plagued by insecurities and (relatively mild) commitment issues—all the more entertaining. And, perhaps taking advantage of that, DuVall crafts the script so that the relationship between Jessie and Sarah is very fleshed out, certainly more so than Jack and Lola’s. And they are central to the movie turning to slapstick in its second half after Sarah finds out about Lola kissing Jessie. The couple fight, tackle each other into a lake, chase each other back to the house at full sprint and try to one-up each other by kissing both Jack and Lola. All while a bewildered Matt and Annie watch. It’s the unquestionable highlight of the movie.
But the script lives and dies by the Annie character. She instigates the entire intervention plan, and her laser focus on encouraging her friends to divorce—despite her own relationship problems—is the backbone of many comedic moments. Lynskey’s performance, as such, has the power to make or break this ensemble. And she delivers in spades. Lynskey’s comedic timing has never been in question, but with Annie she also has the opportunity to display her dramatic talents, capturing the nuances of Annie’s delusional and self-destructive personality. She delivers some of the movie’s best one-liners (“No one likes a Jolene,” and “Ruby would never throw peaches at someone she doesn’t know. That would be unladylike,”) and her character’s own intervention proves much more moving than the ordeal with Ruby and Peter.
For a debut effort, The Intervention is a proficient ensemble comedy with some truly hilarious moments. Its biggest pitfall, however, is in centering the entire story around Ruby and Peter. It’s not as if Annie’s idea to stage an intervention is completely unfounded. The couple is in a bad way, and by the halfway point, there’s no question that their relationship has fostered a dangerously unhealthy level of bitterness and passive aggression. There’s little reason for the audience to root for them deciding to remain together. But the movie’s final act ends on a hopeful note, and it’s one that simply doesn’t ring true. It benefits from the renewed focus on Annie, but the overall effort ultimately suffers from narrative convention, forcing a happy ending when a more realistic one would have made The Intervention a notable addition to the ensemble dramedy.
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