Mark Reviews Movies: VACATION FRIENDS

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Review by Mark Dujsik | August 27, 2021

Vacation Friends feels like the antithesis to the current trend of American movie comedy, which so often seems to rely on stars to create the humor that's lacking from a screenplay. Here, we can imagine other actors in these roles, and the script's jokes still remain intact. To be sure, the presence of these particular cast members provides a significant boost to the material, but that doesn't change the deeper point: This is a legitimate comedy at its very foundation.

That might seem like a low bar, but co-writer/director Clay Tarver's film is well above those diminished standards. It's a very funny film, with a clever premise and, more importantly, a fine sense of allowing two different situations to escalate in increasingly uncomfortable ways.

One involves a straitlaced couple and their growing willingness to let go of their inhibitions while on vacation, thanks to another couple who know nothing of the concept of inhibitions. The other sees those wild, free, and shameless "vacation friends" literally crash a very fancy event, where the straitlaced characters have to try—and constantly fail—to keep them under some kind of control. Famously, there are no hard rules for comedy, but in terms of loose guidelines, the setup of this kind of dichotomy, presenting two situations that are more or less mirror images of each other, is pretty solid.

The screenplay, written by a team of writers (Tarver is joined by brothers Tim and Tom Mullen, as well as Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley), begins with Marcus (Lil Rel Howery) and Emily (Yvonne Orji) arriving in Mexico for a week-long vacation. We get some usual, mild conflict in the dynamic of this couple: Marcus, who owns a construction company, is a workaholic, and Emily just wants him to stop thinking about business for a week.

None of that ultimately matters (although the fact that Emily's father doesn't care too much for Marcus becomes important later, for the film's second scenario). Marcus is planning to propose to Emily. He has the big surprise—champagne and romantic music prepared for their suite—all worked out with the concierge at the expensive, lavish resort where the couple is staying. It's a minor detail, by the way, but we quickly suspect Tarver has a good eye for casting and humor through that concierge, who only appears in a couple of scenes. Carlos Santos plays the role, though, with a firm control of dry deadpan and comic timing, and the performance gives us a sense that this isn't going to be just about some high-concept shenanigans.

Anyway, Marcus' plans are destroyed, on account of the guests upstairs, who let the hot tub overflow and flood the couple's room. Ron (John Cena) and Kyla (Meredith Hagner), the unthinking and inconsiderate tub-fillers and room-wreckers, are overjoyed when Marcus proposes in the lobby and upset that some water—not them—ruined his plans. The two lovebirds have to be their roommates in the presidential suite while they celebrate their engagement this week.

The remainder of the first section of the story has Marcus and Emily—well, mostly Marcus—opening themselves up to new experiences, either unwittingly (Kyla makes a knock-out of a margarita, although that's because the "salt" is something far more potent) or with a mounting sense of fun and daring (Marcus pilots a boat Ron rented, and there's a clever shot in which the setup—a faraway take of the boat approaching something—is even funnier than the punch line). The four spend the week partying, drinking, doing some recreational drugs, drinking some more, and bonding along the way. There's a suspicion that the screenwriters might have something sinister in store, since Ron and Kyla are so carefree about, well, everything, so it's a relief that they just turn out to be sincere—but not-too-bright and incredibly reckless (Ron wants to play a game of William Tell with Marcus, among other things)—about, well, everything.

Here, it's probably important to note how well these actors play their respective roles and off each other. That's especially true of Howery, as the straight man of the duo, and Cena, who continues to excel at going against his physically imposing stature and playing a big goof.

Howery's increasing frustration and desperation is vitally important to the momentum of mounting misunderstandings and misadventures in the second section, which sees Ron and Kyla invading Marcus and Emily's fancy country-club wedding party. Cena does goof around with aplomb, straddling the line between tactless jerk and an unthinking guy with a genuine heart. It's nice how firmly the screenwriters and actors land on that second option, though. Orji, underutilized but effective, and Hagner, utilized a bit more and just as effective, don't get nearly the screentime or number and quality of gags as their male co-stars, but their work isn't to be dismissed, either.

The comedy works, isolated in each segment—the vacation and the wedding—and as a combined whole, as unlikely setups from the first part pay off in unexpected ways during the second (Ron's preternatural ability, for example, to tell when a bird is about to unleash some droppings). The cast undeniably helps this material, giving it the timing, the energy, and the unanticipated heart that it needs. Vacation Friends has a good foundation, though, and as we've seen too often in modern comedy, no amount of charm from or goodwill toward a cast can make up for the absence of that.

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