Stars: 2/5

Netflix added wacky New Zealand comedy “The Breaker Upperers” to its long 2019 movie line-up.

The film made its debut in New Zealand last year and was successful enough for Netflix to want to add it to its movie collection. With the plan to release over 60 new movies in the course of a year, this is only one of many comedies we’ll be watching.

The movie is about two friends who met through a bad break-up. In true “Beautiful-Liar”-Beyoncé-and-Shakira fashion, Mel, played by Madeleine Sami, discovers her boyfriend has been cheating on her and tells the other woman, her future BFF Jen, played by Jackie van Beek. They eventually start a business together helping couples break up with their own crappy exes. They fake pregnancies, cheating scandals, kidnappings and even deaths to help people get away from their significant others.

They make a lot of money from doing this, but the terrible ex-boyfriend context didn’t come until close to the middle of the movie, so the viewer didn’t really know why they were doing it. It seems like anyone will doing anything for a quick buck these days, but of course people still realize this is a horrible thing to do, regardless of your past.

It wasn’t until later in the film that the women were forced to see the repercussions of their actions first hand. This made them reassess who they were as people and what they wanted.

There was a scene where they lied and told a man in front of all of his family members and children that his wife was found dead. They definitely over did it, and even though it wasn’t completely the plan, it’s insane to think someone would pay to break up without someone like that at all.

The fact that someone would rather fake a kidnapping than face their partner and break up with them is absurd. Of course, this movie is a comedy, so they were dramatically making fun of how people lie during some break ups, but it was hard to sympathize with the characters throughout most of the film because what they did was so objectionable.

The fact that the characters seemed to have never been in a good relationship before is also probably why they found it so easy to break up others.

The idea of people in bad relationships helping other people with their relationship seems to be a pattern in most movies. The movie adds a twist to popular reused narrative, but that’s about all it does.

The movie dragged a little for me and it was hard to get through. It was a different kind of cringy than I usually like. They attempted to make jokes about certain topics to stay up to date or reach a certain audience and they just fell flat. Most of them didn’t flow naturally with the dialogue and it was just plainly uncomfortable to watch. They even went as far to joke about more serious topics like addiction and racism, but the context they used told them in didn’t correlate and they just didn’t sit well.

What I did like about this film, however, was how they made an effort to focus on friendship. When their mutual ex comes back into town, the women get into an argument over what happened in the past, and then part ways for a portion of the film. Jen attempts to mend her friendship with Mel and help her get out of another bad relationship.

It proved that through bad breaks up your friends will always be there for you even during a fight. No matter the situation, Jen and Mel always had each other’s back, and girl power is always something I can get behind.

Their rekindling filled them with love so much that they decided to do breakups and makeups, which was my favorite part of the film because it added that sappy, sweet touch that I was desperately looking for.

In the end, save your money because sisters before misters and fries before guys will always be true.