‘SEPARATE VACATIONS’ TAKES A BAD TRIP

“Separate Vacations” (citywide) is about as tempting as a trip to Libya.

After 12 years of marriage, a young architect (David Naughton) feels so stale that he abruptly tells his wife (Jennifer Dale) that instead of joining her and their three obstreperous kids on the skiing vacation he chose for them, he’s heading for Mexico alone, ostensibly on business.

Never mind that Dale feels a little blah herself. Having squelched whatever sympathy we might have had for the heretofore doggedly faithful Naughton, writer Robert Kaufman proceeds to punish him with a series of misfired sexcapades, which give ample opportunity for the architect to reveal his limitless boorishness, hypocrisy and male chauvinism.

But wait: Dale proves to be not such a prize either. Before you can say “slalom” she’s shoved aside her baby sitter (Laurie Holden) in her pursuit of a handsome, very young ski bum (Mark Keyloun) whom Holden spotted first.

“Separate Vacations” is plotted like a Doris Day comedy of the ‘50s in which adultery is never quite attained--well, there is that awkward interlude between Naughton and a woman in an airplane restroom--but which is strained after mightily. Yet in the ‘80s there surely must be many who would agree that the way the architect and his wife treat each other--and practically everybody else who has the misfortune to enter their orbit--is really worse than either actually having a fling.

In short, like lots of comedies these days, there’s much nastiness in “Separate Vacations” (rated R for adult situations, strong language). It would have taken a Bunuel--or the Blake Edwards of “10”--to transform the frustration and rancor in Kaufman’s script into a successful black satire. All that director Michael Anderson brings to it is a bland impersonality that gives us little clue as to how either he or Kaufman view this miserable couple--and that so decisively defeats Naughton and Dale in their attempt to make us care for them.

At the end of the film the architect at last sees the light and tells Dale that “children are the death of romance and always will be”--that sometimes they should be left with grandparents so that a husband and wife can have some time alone to keep their marriage alive. Golly, we could have told him that in the first reel.