Newlyweds-2012

Edward Burns is an admirable writer/director/actor. In 1995, he made The Brothers McMullen, a film that won him Best Picture at Sundance and instantly made him a new star, appearing in Jennifer Aniston films and co-starring in Saving Private Ryan, amongst other high profile films. However, while mainstream film has admired Burns in his various appearances in films, he's consistently worked behind the camera, writing and directing his own independent features. His newest film Newlyweds, is incredibly low budget at only $9,000, and focuses on, in case the title didn't give it away, a pair of newlyweds. Burns has never been shy about his admiration for Woody Allen, and it shows here. But while Allen has recently revitalized his career by trying new things, Burns' film feels like a low-grade version of a lesser Allen film, with not much of the wit that makes Allen so great.

Burns and Caitlin Fitzgerald play Buzzy and Katie, a couple who recently married after a short courtship and basically have figured out the secret to a great marriage is that they rarely see each other. It is a situation that works out for both of them, even if their friends think it's a mockery of a marriage. This perfect arrangement gets thrown amuck when Linda, played be Kerry Bishe, comes into New York, wanting to crash with her brother Buzzy. She instantly causes havoc by bringing a guy she's never met home in the middle of the night, and her antics only escalate from there.

Burns and Fitzgerald are fine, but they just don't have the screenplay to back them up, while Bishe is quite a nice revelation. She was good in a small role in Kevin Smith's Red State, but here she is allowed more time and does at the very least allow the film to have some surprise. 

Burns uses one of the most awkwardly used and most common television tropes to tell his story, by using the faux-documentary style. The story is broken up by talking head segments where a crew discusses what just happened. There's never any explanation as to why this crew, who are never given any attention, would be following the story of a newlywed couple who has to deal with the groom's sister temporarily living with them. Here it doesn't feel like an interesting way to tell the story, but rather a sloppy way to work around a script that doesn't know how to get its characters to display how they are feeling.

Without giving too much away, Buzzy and Katie realize that maybe they jumped into marriage too early. While it may be true, the reasoning between these feelings feels incredibly false. A week or so of inconvenience should not be enough to ruin a commitment that is supposed to last the rest of your life and Burns never earns the feeling that this is a normal reaction to such a situation and just seems unbelievable.

Newlyweds is a small, unassuming film that just doesn't feel like it's trying anything new. Burns doesn't seem to be trying anything too out of the box and therefore doesn't leave the audience expecting too much. Burns has proven that he can do great things with a tiny budget in a independent setting, but like Burns' mentor Allen has shown, sometimes they can't all be successes.

Rating: C