Obsessed in romanticizing and pathologizing the neuroses of people trapped in the confines of large cities and drowned in seas of faceless human beings incapable of communicating, Ira and Abby's opening scene is a red flag enough: Ira (Chris Messina, who depicted a more balanced city dweller as the Republican attorney Ted in Six Feet Under) is babbling on and on while in his therapist's couch. When his therapist breaks up with him, he walks out into the streets, Rilo Kiley's "Ripchord" playing in the background, used in the most literal way possible. The film would have been fine, if it dwelled simply on Ira and Abby's (played by Jennifer Westfeldt) relationship and shotgun wedding(s). Instead, it is hampered by the movie's desire to address the "issue" of marriage, as a contract and as an expression of social constructs and pressures. It failed to recognize the act of marrying and signing contracts as first a display of devotion between two people, and second as a recognition of the state to officiate such emotions existing between two human beings. In the end, the film's focus on marriage as contract rather than declaration of true faith made the "issues" of marriage (infidelity, loneliness) a little trite and pointless, the promise to stay merely being just a contract. The movie was highly critical of marriage, but never fully delved into the very motivations people have in having the contract regardless. The promotion for the film says that it is a "subversive" movie, which goes to show how much easier it is to reject an established idea than it is to understand it and know the very reasons why people allow ideas to be established and become dogma.
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