Over Your Dead Body

Lisa (Samara Weaving) and Dan (Jason Segel) deal with their marriage issue in unhealthy ways in Over Your Dead Body (Distributed by IFC Films)

Over Your Dead Body is a dark comedy with a clever hook: a long-suffering married couple go on a trip to an isolated cabin in the woods, where both husband and wife plan to kill the other. The early scenes, from the setup until their secrets are revealed, are funny. The screenplay really leans on couple’s therapy tropes and mines festering petty gripes for laughs. Then, a massive complication gets thrown into the mix and the movie becomes something else entirely.

That is when the intrigue begins to fade. It goes from an even darker take on The War of the Roses to a home invasion thriller. It introduces these two self-absorbed people, both moments away from committing cold-blooded murder just so they don’t have to be with this person anymore, and then expects the audience to start rooting for them to survive, maybe finding a newfound love for each other in the process. That turns out to be too big of an ask. Juxtaposing the sociopathic criminals with the ordinariness of Dan and Lisa could have been interesting, yet the screenplay never puts in the work to get them to see where they went wrong. It is more like their hatred stops making sense to them because they need to cooperate to stay alive.

This is a remake of the 2021 Norwegian film The Trip and it sounds pretty faithful. There are a lot of fun ideas here, with some really strong sections. However, once they have more dangerous enemies, the arc becomes a little too easy, overstuffed and not challenging for them or the audience. Director Jorma Taccone does well with the comedy, but isn’t as comfortable with the violent and bloody material. He tries to use graphic violence as a gag, with limited success. The movie is all over the place, leaving its initial themes behind in exchange for shootings, stabbings and missing body parts. In the end, there is too much going on, squandering a good concept in favor of something intermittently amusing.

Allegra (Juliette Lewis) and Pete (Timothy Olyphant) interrupt the weekend

Dan and Lisa have been married seven years and are very unhappy. They both decide to use a weekend getaway as an opportunity to dispatch their spouse. Their murderous plans are interrupted by a trio of fugitives, creating a terrifying situation that causes them to see their relationship in a new light.

The biggest strength in Over Your Dead Body (101 minutes, without the end credits) comes from the performances of the cast, even if they seem like they are in different movies at times. Jason Segel plays Dan like he is in a farce about a hypocritical husband. His comedic timing is very good, though he struggles a bit when his character is supposed to be freaked out. As Lisa, Samara Weaving balances the humor and suspense better (after all, she has a lot more experience doing that). Unfortunately, they don’t have much chemistry together, either as enemies or reluctant allies. That lack of connective tissue definitely hurts the plot.

As the leader of the villains, Timothy Olyphant is entertainingly psychotic. He and Juliette Lewis, as a corrections officer who broke him free in the name of love, are a satire of the problems Dan and Lisa have. That is another puzzle piece that doesn’t fit with everything else. The individual pieces are fun, and I did laugh a decent amount (up until the last act, when the violence started to overwhelm the jokes). It is an amusing curiosity that just doesn’t smoothly shift gears.

3 out of 5

Cast:

Jason Segel as Dan

Samara Weaving as Lisa

Timothy Olyphant as Pete

Juliette Lewis as Allegra

Keith Jardine as Todd

Directed by Jorma Taccone

Screenplay by Nick Kocher and Brian McElhaney