AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
The distance from bliss to chaos is a pretty short one in the new movie "Splitsville." And we spend so very little time in bliss with Carey and Ashley, whose new marriage unravels enroute to a romantic getaway when Ashley decides this is the moment to get real.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "SPLITSVILLE")
ADRIA ARJONA: (As Ashley) I'm unfaithful. I've been unfaithful.
KYLE MARVIN: (As Carey) OK. Just one time? Two? Please don't make me count. Three?
RASCOE: Carey turns to his friends, Paul and Julie, only to discover their secret to a happy marriage is that it's an open one. That revelation and what follows upends everyone's relationships. "Splitsville" stars Kyle Marvin, Michael Angelo Covino, Adria Arjona and Dakota Johnson. Joining us now are two of the stars who co-wrote the film, Kyle Marvin and Michael Angelo Covino, who also directed the film. Welcome to the program.
MARVIN: Thank you.
MICHAEL ANGELO COVINO: Thank you for having us.
RASCOE: There's a lot jam-packed into the first 20 minutes of this movie. We get right into it. Why did you choose this pacing? And I'll just start with Kyle.
MARVIN: Well, I think we love movies that don't hold back. We wanted to just create a film that puts the audience into it right away and really live in what happens after what you would expect at the end of a movie, you know, get right into the hard, uncomfortable part.
RASCOE: And that's the breakup - right? - between your character and his wife, Ashley? They've only been together about 14 months, but she bored. She ready for some new, new.
(LAUGHTER)
RASCOE: And, Michael, what did you think of, like, jumping into it that way?
COVINO: What got us excited about making this film was, you know, what happens when you're newly married and you come to the realization that you made a mistake, or maybe there's something better out there, you know? The idea that we can decide on being with one person for the rest of our life when there's unlimited options and there's no real pressure to make that decision - what happens when that all blows up in the first eight minutes of the film? And then where does this character go and where do these characters go to find their ways back to each other?
RASCOE: Well, this is really a different sort of romantic comedy. I mean, you get comedy, then there's romance. Then there is that, like, absurdity to it. Kyle, when you, as Carey, don't want to hear what Ashley, your wife, is saying - she's played by Adria Arjona - when she's saying that, look, I want out of this marriage, your character says, nope, and then literally, like, rolls out of the car and kind of just keeps rolling (laughter). It's a literal physical escape.
MARVIN: I think we all do really crazy things in situations where we're emotionally charged. We talk about it a lot. Like, there are people we know who've done insane things in that setting. I think what happens is, you know, you just kind of go with your gut instinct, and sometimes your gut instinct says, run as fast as you can through whatever field you happen to be standing next to.
RASCOE: (Laughter) I mean, have you ever done anything wild like that?
MARVIN: I can't say I've done something that crazy.
COVINO: (Laughter).
MARVIN: You should probably ask Mike that question.
COVINO: (Laughter).
MARVIN: Mike definitely has.
COVINO: I think we all have. What's really fun about this film and what we were trying to explore is, you know, certainly, there's our own personal stuff that we put into it. There's things of close friends and family of ours. There's situations. Kyle and I were talking about recently, a lot of people in our lives have seen the film, and they go, you know, you took a lot from me.
RASCOE: (Laughter).
COVINO: And, like (laughter), I think it's just funny that a lot of people watch the insane characters in this film and this sort of screwball comedy nature and go, like, that's my story.
RASCOE: Oh, that's (laughter) - I liked how this movie does, like, explore male friendship, which you don't often see, right? Michael, you play Paul, who's Carey's best friend. But they seem very different, like, in how they view love and romance and really life.
COVINO: I think there's a lot of similarities between the two characters in that they're both after their version of love or their version of happiness or family. And they're going about it in very different ways.
Carey's a bit more direct. And Paul sort of operates from a place of insecurity where he, you know, builds this whole kind of complicated life that is really much simpler than that. And so I think he's a really vulnerable character who hides that vulnerability behind a shell of, like, machismo and confidence that maybe is very thin.
RASCOE: The other big part with Paul is that he's in this open marriage. He seems, on the surface, very, very chill about nonmonogamy and all of that.
COVINO: We recognize characters in life that are very true to life that often put up a facade. Maybe they say, hey, I'm cool with that. And then your wife and your best friend sleep together. All of a sudden, it's not cool. It's not because your mind can't process it. It's 'cause you have a guttural reaction to it, and the jealousy just comes out in - you know, in a very physical way.
RASCOE: A lot of the comedy comes from these fight scenes, and there is a long, really outrageous, audacious fight scene between the two of you. Were you guys doing your own stunts?
COVINO: Yeah, we did our own stunts on this one.
RASCOE: (Laughter).
COVINO: Kyle had the bruises to prove it.
(LAUGHTER)
MARVIN: Sometimes the only way to express yourself is physically. And in this scenario, when emotions and passions are high - we happen to be very, very physical. And I think for us, that - when we came up with that idea when we were writing the script, it's something that we both just said, absolutely, yes, we have to do this. And then, you know, we might or might not have gotten carried away trying to figure out how to hurt each other, when we were writing it, in greater and greater ways.
COVINO: I would write, Kyle goes through the table, and he'd be like, ah, man. And he's, like, all right. Now, your character goes down the stairs.
RASCOE: Yeah (laughter).
COVINO: It almost became a game of, like, how much can I write an idea that might get you severely hurt? And then we'll see how we could do it.
MARVIN: (Laughter).
COVINO: Kyle was, like, I thought we were done with that shot. I was, like, no, we should probably get another.
RASCOE: (Laughter) This movie - a lot of it is kind of, like, exploring, like, nontraditional relationship dynamics - the big reveal about the open marriage and then exploring that. What made you want to explore those sorts of dynamics in this movie?
COVINO: I think that those dynamics are very - they're very present. They're very much of this moment. You see people dealing with these issues and thinking about them, and - but at the same time, people challenging the concepts of monogamy - it's not a new idea. And so I think that's what felt very universal to us as we were sort of diving into this. And then our new spin on it was really just to tackle it from this sort of more comedic lens with big physical comedy.
RASCOE: What do you hope that audiences see in these two men and their relationships?
MARVIN: I mean, honestly, I hope that they just laugh, seeing absurd scenarios onscreen that might smack of something you've experienced in your life and being able to laugh at it with other people and sort of look at it from a distance is catharsis, in a way.
COVINO: Even if you take nothing from it, if there's no sort of mirror back on your life and you don't see yourself in it, you're at least entertained the whole time, and you go, wow, that was fun. I laughed.
RASCOE: That's Michael Angelo Covino and Kyle Marvin. Their new movie, "Splitsville," is out August 22. Thank you so much for speaking with us today.
COVINO: Thank you.
MARVIN: Thank you very much.
(SOUNDBITE OF STEREOMYTH'S "B***H, DON'T TOUCH MY BREAKFAST") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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