Splitsville is the better of Dakota Johnson’s two 2025 relationship comedies, a looser, livelier counterpoint to Celine Song’s Materialists. Directed by and co-starring Michael Angelo Covino with frequent collaborator Kyle Marvin, it plays like a pinball machine of modern romance, funny more often than not, rarely profound, yet consistently watchable. Covino and Marvin build a brisk farce around two couples whose ideas about fidelity collide, and the result is breezy and entertaining in the moment, and a little thin after.
The setup is clean. Ashley, played with spark by Adria Arjona, blindsides her husband Carey (Kyle Marvin) by asking for a divorce a year into their marriage. Carey spirals and confides in their friends Julie and Paul (Dakota Johnson and Michael Angelo Covino), who casually reveal the secret to their seemingly perfect union, an open arrangement that runs on total honesty. The experiment goes sideways almost immediately when Carey and Julie sleep together, and what begins as a coolly negotiated boundary becomes a grenade tossed into four lives.
Covino stages the fallout with energy and a taste for old school physical comedy. A slapstick brawl between Carey and Paul lands, the revolving door of Ashley’s past and possible future partners camping out in the same house is a solid runner, and the movie keeps finding new rhythms just as a bit starts to wear out. Splitsville leans on situational chaos, and the pulse rarely dips.
What keeps the film afloat is the ensemble. Dakota Johnson feels lighter and sharper here than in Materialists, able to play attraction and guilt without heavy underlining. Marvin is a deft sad clown, Covino has an unbothered cool that curdles nicely when pride is pricked, and Arjona is the live wire who deserves even more screen time. The four have an easy rapport that sells both the bad decisions and the morning afters.
What holds it back is the ceiling on its ideas. Splitsville flirts with thornier questions about consent, honesty, and self image, then retreats to a gag or a reset. The movie is more slapstick than scalpel, so the laughs tie scenes together and sand down the sharper edges. That choice keeps the tone buoyant, it also leaves the film feeling thematically undercooked once the credits roll.
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As a piece of straight up entertainment, Splitsville works – a messy movie about messy people that moves fast and lets its cast charm you. As a statement on modern love, it is more placeholder than provocation.
Score: 6/10
Splitsville (2025)
- Cast: Dakota Johnson, Adria Arjona, Kyle Marvin, Michael Angelo Covino, Charlie Gillespie
- Director: Michael Angelo Covino
- Genre: Comedy, Drama
- Runtime: 105 minutes
- Rated: R
- Release Date: September 5, 2025
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