The Break-up (2006) Is Ultimately a Movie About Emotional Labor
Spoilers from a 14 year-old movie.
As a comedy, The Break-up (2006) fails miserably. The movie hardly entices a laugh, and it entirely deserves its 34% freshness on Rotten Tomatoes, as well as its 5.8 IMDb rating.
With Vince Vaughn as Gary, and Jennifer Anniston as Brooke, the movie tells the story of a relationship falling apart, bringing out the worst in each of the main characters.
The issue with The Break-up as a movie is that it isn’t witty or amusing enough to make you laugh, nor is it raw and dense enough to become good drama. The best works of fiction have a foot in reality, but this fiction isn’t entertaining precisely because it is too real — in a boring way. It depicts a the final days of a relationship in a manner most of us can recognize because most of us have been there. It wasn’t fun in the moment, and it isn’t fun to watch onscreen.
There’s one aspect of The Break-up that’s worth picking apart, though, the fact that it is, at its core, a movie about emotional labor.
Emotional labor is a term that currently transcends its original meaning. It’s evolved to describe the work involved in managing a household and a family, making sure everyone’s needs are cared for, and social connections with friends…
