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03/14/2019 12:01 AMThe female buddy comedy The Breaker Upperers is currently streaming on Netflix. The film was written and directed by co-stars Madeleine Sami and Jackie van Beek. Set in New Zealand, the film tells the story of two friends who run a business helping people break up with their romantic partners for a fee. While the film is certainly not completely unenjoyable, it’s not as fun as one would expect a buddy comedy to be.
More than 15 years ago, Jennifer (Jackie van Beek of The Inland Road and What We Do in the Shadows) experienced a tremendous heartache when her boyfriend of three years cheated on her with another woman. The experience jaded her and she essentially swore off love after that. The one good thing to come out of the terrible end to her relationship was that it introduced her to the person who would eventually become her very best friend, Mel (Madeleine Sami of Slow West and What We Do in the Shadows).
In the years since Jennifer’s break-up, she and Mel have been an inseparable pair, living together and even starting a business together. Their business is a particularly unique one. The two women help clients to break up with their romantic partners for a fee. Sometimes the two women don fake police uniforms and inform loved ones that so-and-so is missing or dead, allowing their client the opportunity to run away and start up a new life elsewhere. Sometimes they sing a song at someone’s door saying so-and-so doesn’t love him or her anymore. Often times, as would be expected, the people receiving notice from them react emotionally, but they are largely hardened to it after all of their years of experience.
After years of being quite successful in the their small business, Jennifer and Mel hit a big-time snag when Mel breaks an important rule and falls romantically for one of their clients, a much younger man named Jordan (James Rolleston of Boy and The Dark Horse), who needs helping breaking up with his aggressive girlfriend, Sepa (Ana Scotney of Wellington Paranormal and The Watercooler). Also around the same time, Mel breaks another of their rules and begins a friendship with Anna (Celia Pacqula of TV’s Rosehaven and Utopia), a woman to whom they had recently delivered the fake bad news of her boyfriend’s demise.
Jennifer and Mel’s friendship is tested when Mel chooses Jordan and befriends Anna, creating problems for them personally and in their business. Naturally, given that the film is a comedy, antics ensue as the two navigate their situations.
For a comedy with a funny title and an even funnier premise, The Breaker Upperers delivers very few laughs for viewers. While there are some along the way, particularly in scenes involving Jennifer’s parents and Jordan’s mom, there are far too few funny moments to make this comedy one worth viewing.
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The Dirt, a brand new Netflix biopic about the creation of Mötley Crüe, begins streaming on Friday, March 22. After the success of Bohemian Rhapsody in theaters, it is of little surprise that Netflix has its own rock and roll biopic ready to begin streaming, set to give viewers a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the lives and early careers of the four founding members of the popular ’80s band.
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