Russell Crowe and Salma Hayek are the only people (save two one liners) who speak in this movie. They play a couple who (they tell us) had a great relationship at the start and now it's all going to hell. Then we get to watch them exist together in time for 2 unbearable hours. The screenwriter was Michael Christofer writing based on his own play of the same name, and maybe a movie screenwriter could have saved this movie. If anyone is tolerant of stagey screen adaptations of plays, I am, OK, but this script is all about two people and it's all done by two people, with non-speaking extras filling the screen.

The movie starts with a sort of split-screen interview style with Russell and Salma. It's too long. WAY too long. AND they are not even actually in a split screen - they are set up on a set that is made to look split screen and they don't even use it. The whole movie is painted in shades of red and blue and some yellow and green - it's like Dick Tracy when he was just out of college and depressed because his relationship isn't working out. Unlike Dick Tracy (which, for the record, I hated, but respected the thoroughness of the production design if not the aesthetics), Breaking Up doesn't attempt to use this visual aid to their conflicts - instead, their apartments are identical so we can't tell what is going on.

The couple have great sex, then a HUGE need to be apart. They fight, split up, spend time apart, and end up crawling pathetically back to each other, whining about how great it was, they should see each other, they miss each other. (What's to miss?) Then they have dinner and argue, make up by having sex, and one or the other sneaks home or starts an argument to have an excuse to leave. They pine constantly for the great emotional relationship they once had but we never get to witness any of it to feel as robbed of it as they do.If we could ever have had a sense that they had a decent relationship, we would care. If they broke up, had the same problems with other people, then went back to each other, we would care (albeit less). If they even remotely had any kind of decent relationship sustained for longer than an orgasm, we could care. BUT THERE IS NO REASON GIVEN US TO CARE.

To Crowe's and Hayek's credit, they were very natural and real with each other on screen and they spouted off the good parts of dialogue well. Really, it's a very good depiction of a horrid relationship with only fading chemistry. Crowe was at the screening of the movie and I wished someone would have asked him "How could you do this movie after doing LA Confidential?" He did say something enigmatic to the tune of "This is not like all those epic romantic love stories that have been made throughout the years." My friends and I got a sense that he was not all that pleased.

The director, having been given a shooting script that was no doubt nothing more than the stage play with CUT TO and FADE TO added in, tried to wake us up with interesting little camera tricks like video montages and weird dream sequences and a nifty little black and white bit where we pan back and forth from table to table in a cafe and see each of them on dates and it's shot live so they are literally running (out of sight) to be in the next "scene" within the same shot - once the camera had to wait for Russell to get to his table. Cute ideas but films should open up the 1 or 2 rooms setting of a play and this movie did not. Basically it was pretty annoying. The best part were some man on the street interviews done by the wacky couple as to whether or not they should get married (NO GOD IN HEAVEN NO!) but that, sadly, was only a few minutes.

An audience member quote: "That movie was so annoying I almost didn't want to see Salma Hayek naked." I think anyone who saw Desperado would agree that would have to be awfully annoying to miss her naked.Really, unless you are trying to break up a couple just like these people, do not go. If you go, take that terrible couple with you (make them pay too just for making you live through the hell of watching them together) and then gush about what a terrible relationship the movie couple had. Otherwise, avoid.I"m so sorry, Russell and Salma, it's a big zero.