The Heartbreak Kid (2007 film)
The Heartbreak Kid is a 2007 American romantic dark comedy directed by the Farrelly brothers (who also helped to write the film alongside Leslie Dixon and Scot Armstrong). It is a remake of the 1972 film of the same name and stars Ben Stiller in the main role, Michelle Monaghan, Malin Åkerman, Jerry Stiller, Rob Corddry, Carlos Mencia, Scott Wilson, and Danny McBride. It tells the story of a sports shop owner who ends up in a rushed marriage with a woman and meets a true love interest during a trip to Mexico.
This article is about 2007 film. For the 1972 film, see The Heartbreak Kid (1972 film).The Heartbreak Kid
Scot Armstrong
Leslie Dixon
Peter Farrelly
Bobby Farrelly
Kevin Barnett
The Heartbreak Kid
by Neil Simon
"A Change of Plan"
by Bruce Jay Friedman
Ted Field
Bradley Thomas
Sam Seig
Bill Ryan
Brendan Ryan
- October 5, 2007
116 minutes
United States
English
$60 million[1]
$128.5 million
Plot[edit]
Eddie Cantrow, owner of a San Francisco sports shop, is single. One day, he is attends the wedding of his former fiancee, whom he had previously been with for five years. There, Eddie gets sit on the "singles table", which is filled with children of the other invited and obviously-married guests. Later, while witnessing a purse-snatching, he tries unsuccessfully to recover it, resulting in the thief attacking him. He and the purse's owner, Lila exchange pleasantries. Lila later appears at his store. In their next encounter, Lila admits that she did not come to the store to shop, but actually hoping to see him again.
They begin dating. Lila eventually announces that the company where she works as an environmental researcher is requiring Lila to move to Holland. However, her company does not deploy married employees abroad. At the urging of both his father Doc and best friend Mac, Eddie marries her after only dating a few weeks.
During the drive to their honeymoon in Los Cabos, Mexico, Eddie learns things about Lila he finds annoying, such as incessant singing. Arriving at their room, they have sex for the first time and Eddie learns that Lila is aggressive in bed. Eddie tries to look beyond Lila's recent behaviors, but his disaffection deepens when she divulges her history of substance abuse which resulted in a deviated septum, so she sprays drinks out of her nose. He learns she was only an unpaid volunteer at her environment research company, and the "thief" was an ex that she owed money to. Eddie realizes he made a mistake marrying Lila. Not in love with her, he cannot stand more of her bad habits.
On the beach, Lila insists on using mineral oil, refusing sunblock despite Eddie's warnings about the sun. She then blames Eddie for her second-degree sunburn that she gets as a result. Distraught, he meets Miranda, a vacationer with her family from Mississippi. Eddie spend most of his honeymoon with Miranda and her family while the sunburn confines Lila to their room. Miranda's family all like Eddie except for her cousin Martin, who distrusts him. There is a misunderstanding between Eddie and Miranda's family, who hear he came to Mexico to mourn his wife who was killed by a maniac.
Eddie eventually decides to propose divorce to Lila at lunch, but then Martin and his brother Buzz confront him, with Martin shoving a spicy pepper up Eddie's nose as a result. When Miranda learns about Lila, she accidentally falls into the ocean; Eddie tries to save her, and is stung by a jellyfish afterwards. Lila treats the stings by urinating on him, even with everybody watching. Eventually, Lila and Miranda both abandon him (Miranda for his lies and Lila for his wish for a divorce). Lila even destroys Eddie's passport stranding him in Mexico.
Depressed, Eddie starts to drink heavily, and annoy a local with stories of his problems. Coerced by "Uncle Tito", the hotel owner and a friend of Mac, Eddie decides to go to Mississippi to make amends with Miranda. Border patrol agents repeatedly catch Eddie attempting to cross the U.S. border illegally, but he eventually gets to Oxford, Mississippi.
Upon meeting Miranda's family, he learns that she has married someone. Despite promising to leave Miranda alone, Eddie sneaks in her room and awakens Miranda. Her husband wakes up when Martin bursts in and attacks Eddie until Doc intervenes. Eddie agrees to leave if Miranda says she truly loves her new husband, which she does. Eddie leaves with Doc, not knowing that Miranda still has feelings for him.
Eighteen months later, Eddie is divorced from Lila (who got his store) and moves to Mexico to sell sporting goods on the beach. Miranda later finds Eddie there. She has left her husband, and is still in love with him. Eddie is thrilled. Miranda, however, is unaware that Eddie had remarried to someone named Consuela, causing him to go through the same predicament again.
It is also revealed that Lila returned to Los Cabos and stayed at a hotel room with a donkey whom she has sexual relations with.
Promotion[edit]
During the film's preview at the 2007 San Diego Comic-Con, a sex scene from the film was cut due to backlash for the nudity in prior films at the convention such as 300 and Borat.[2]
Reception[edit]
Box office[edit]
The film grossed US$14,022,105 (equivalent to $20,604,461 in 2023) in 3,219 theaters in its opening weekend, putting it in second place at the box office in North America. The film eventually grossed a total of $127,766,650 (equivalent to $187,743,773 in 2023) worldwide, which includes $36,787,257 in North America and $90,979,393 in other territories.[3]
Critical response[edit]
Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 29% based on 157 reviews, with an average rating of 4.56/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "Despite some amiable performances, The Heartbreak Kid is neither as daring nor as funny as the Farrelly Brothers' earlier films".[4] On Metacritic, the film had an average score of 46 out of 100, based on 30 reviews, which indicates "mixed or average reviews".[5] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C" on an A+ to F scale.[6]
Peter Travers (of Rolling Stone) declared the film the year's Worst Remake on his list of the Worst Movies of 2007.[7] Jonathan Rosenbaum (of The Chicago Reader) dismissed it as "brain-dead".[8]