There was a time when a six-minute ovation at Cannes meant a new Kurosawa was on the horizon, or a filmmaker had just delivered a quiet, devastating truth about the human condition. Now, it appears, it can also mean a comedy about two couples navigating a spectacularly bad idea.
I'm talking about Michael Angelo Covino's new film, Splitsville, which made its debut at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. The news arrived like a small, pleasant shock to the system: a comedy that made hardened festival-goers laugh. Not just chuckle, but stand up and applaud. Covino's reflection on the moment—”Laughter should be seen in a theater, not on a television screen”—felt less like a statement and more like a gentle plea. He's right, of course.
The poster for Splitsville is less a polished piece of marketing and more a candid snapshot of the chaos within. We see the four principals—Kyle Marvin, Adria Arjona, Dakota Johnson, and Covino himself—jammed together in a state of quiet unease. It's a messy, awkward tableau. A hand is on a shoulder, another on a knee, eyes are darting, smiles are strained. It's a group hang in which no one is actually comfortable. It's a visual representation of what happens when the delicate balance of a friendship group shatters. The poster, with its slightly off-kilter energy, feels more honest than the pristine, symmetrical designs we've grown accustomed to. It's a reminder that good comedy, like life, is often a little cluttered and uncomfortable.
The plot, as it's been described, sounds like something that would happen to people you actually know. A year into marriage, Carey (Marvin) and Ashley (Arjona) hit a wall, and Ashley wants out. Rather than let them sink, their married friends, Julie (Johnson) and Paul (Covino), offer a lifeline that is really an anchor: an open relationship. What follows is, to put it mildly, a train wreck of crossed lines and shattered boundaries, with Carey and Julie sleeping together and the illusion of control evaporating for everyone involved.
This isn't the clean-cut comedy of the ‘80s, where the hijinks always wrapped up neatly by the third act. It's the kind of film that walks a fine line between the hilariously awkward and the painfully real, a cinematic trend we've seen brewing for some time now, from films like The Squid and the Whale to more recent entries. It's a film that asks us to laugh at the discomfort of others, and in doing so, to recognize a bit of our own.
The film opens in theaters on August 22. I suppose we'll all find out then if a comedy can still make a proper splash in the cinematic waters, or if it will be forgotten once the credits roll.
