The Break-Up

Pushed to the breaking-up point after their latest 'why can't you do this one little thing for me?' argument, Brooke calls it quits with her boyfriend Gary. What follows is a hilarious series of remedies, war tactics, overtures and undermining tricks – all encouraged by the former couple's friends and confidantes …and the occasional total stranger! When neither ex is willing to move out of their shared apartment, the only solution is to continue living as hostile roommates until one of them reaches breaking point.

Critics mostly dismissed The Break-Up as a misfire that can't decide what it wants to be — too bitter and unresolved to work as a romantic comedy, yet not sharp or insightful enough to function as the anti-romance it was apparently aiming for. Audiences were similarly underwhelmed, and the film's willingness to deny viewers a conventional happy ending left many feeling cheated rather than moved.