Lake Bell hits sophomore slump with marital comedy 'I Do ... Until I Don't'

By Katie Walsh

Aug. 31, 2017 6:30 AM PT

Writer-director-actress Lake Bell’s directorial debut, “In a World …,” sparkled with a refreshing feistiness in its unapologetic take-down of gender inequality in Hollywood. Her follow-up film, “I Do … Until I Don’t,” which she also wrote, directed and stars in, might have taken a similarly voracious bite out of the institution of marriage, but unfortunately, it seems that Bell has been defanged.

“I Do … Until I Don’t” boasts a provocative premise: a British documentarian, Vivian Prudeck (Dolly Wells) lands in Vero Beach, Fla., to film her latest project, which argues marriage should be a seven-year contract with the option to renew. She finds several subjects for her ethnographic magnifying glass, including Cybil (Mary Steenburgen) and Harvey (Paul Reiser), who can barely conceal their mutual contempt; the awkward Alice (Bell, cartoonishly fussy) and Noah (Ed Helms), conflicted about conception and struggling with their business; and blissfully happy hippies Fanny (Amber Heard) and Zander (Wyatt Cenac), whose open relationship offers counterbalance.

With such prime examples of marital discord, Vivian can’t imagine how her film might be anything other than a slam dunk. But Bell jettisons any possibility for radical ideals or emotional poignancy in favor of a hackneyed rom-com ending tacked onto a movie that’s both stale and unpleasantly madcap.

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