COUPLES RETREAT

I enjoyed this film. It had several moments when it was unfocused, thus causing a running time of over 145 minutes; yet the good times out-weighed the bad.
The running time is a real issue, a romantic comedy should not last more than 90 minutes, that is my red flag number and it is seldom wrong. The saving grace of this film is that the characters all acquired depth as the story goes along. The scenes of each couple working with a therapist to find and repair the flaws in their marriage are worthy of your full attention. Those scenes are the high point of this film. The target audience for this production is married people over age 30. That makes this a rare film in a teenage driven industry. Peter Billingsley, the former child star who played little Ralphie, in the cult classic, “A CHRISTMAS STORY,” was the director. Mister Billingsley has to do a better job of separating the wheat from the chaff and watching the clock in future productions.