The Matchbreaker (2016) Wesley Elder, Christina Grimmie, Osric Chau, Olan Rogers, Shawna Howson Movie Review

The Matchbreaker (2016)   2/52/52/52/52/5


Wesley Elder in The Matchbreaker (2016)

Heart Breaker

As a teenager Ethan Cooper (Wesley Elder) had a crush on Emily Atkins (Christina Grimmie), not that he told her but ever since then he has held this perfect image of Emily on a pedestal with none of his girlfriends ever matching up to her. It is because of this he has a gained a talent for breaking up with people a talent which after losing his job becomes his full time career as he is hired by parents to stop their sons & daughters from making relationship mistakes by marrying the wrong person. Things turn complicated when Emily returns to town and Ethan finds himself once again dealing with his feelings for her especially as she has a boyfriend who is seemingly perfect.

No matter what sort of movie you are watching there is one golden rule; deliver characters which draw the audience in as when you have characters which achieve this you can make even tired, old ideas entertaining again. This for me is the first flaw with "The Matchbreaker" as the characters did nothing for me from Ethan being the comically awkward romantic with high expectations to Emily being the sweet, good girl he has had a crush on since he was a teenager. They are bland although maybe for a younger audience the characters blandness will be nudged out of the way by their like for the actors Wesley Elder and Christina Grimmie.

But then there is the storyline, which isn't that original as there are other movies which feature someone using their talents for breaking people up but ending up dealing with romantic complications. As such when you have a familiar storyline which doesn't have the characters to entertain it ends up struggling. And that is further compounded by the humour throughout "The Matchbreaker" ending up as mundane as the rest of the movie. In truth a gag about a weighing machine being used as a rowing machine ended up the funniest thing in the movie.

What this all boils down to is that "The Matchbreaker" is one of those movies made for, I hope, a teen audience which as a grown up I found a bit lame. But whilst it didn't do much for me I know there were equally lame movies which I enjoyed when I was a lot younger.


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