Every couple has its bad days, and it has often been said that it’s in these moments that many relationships grow the strongest, since if someone can overcome the everyday irritants that come with being in a relationship. Pretty much everything else (barring actual immoral actions) is extremely easy. However, some couples are not meant to weather these storms and can instead find themselves being pushed apart beyond any hope of reconciliation, which is a sad but unfortunate reality for many people. This subject is explored to the extreme in Over Your Dead Body, written and directed by Jorma Taccone, adapting the Norwegian film The Trip by Tommy Wirkola, adding yet another unnecessary remake of a well-received foreign film into a heavy-handed attempt to recapture the same magic but without any of the skill or creativity. The film follows Dan, a filmmaker who had a mildly successful debut years before, but has now been forced to direct cheap commercials, and his wife Lisa, a prospective actor looking for her big break. They decide to take a break from everyday life and spend a weekend at their family cabin in the woods. Unbeknownst to each other, they both intend to kill one another, having established their own secret plans to end the other’s life and hide the evidence. However, their respective plans are immediately derailed for several reasons, which forces husband and wife to work together to escape, proving that beneath the loathing that they thought they felt, there was still a special connection binding them together. The concept is decent enough, but unfortunately, this is where the impact wears off, since the film that surrounds them is a heavy-handed mess, an overly dense attempt at blending comedy and psychological thriller that never lands, leading us to become overly frustrated by the complete lack of cohesion or originality throughout the film.

The subject matter being explored throughout Over Your Dead Body is blatantly obvious, to the point where it doesn’t even attempt to surprise us with the storyline, since everything is presented to us from the beginning, and anyone with even the slightest amount of critical thinking will know where this film is heading: a couple grows tired of one another, and in an effort to end that hostility, they both secretly plan to kill the other to cash in their life insurance policy, only to have unexpected obstacles stand in their way. The concept of spouses getting so frustrated with the banality of married life that they feel the only way out would be to kill one another is not a rare idea, since many works of art have explored it in detail. It’s not difficult to see why this premise is entertaining, since it plays on the classic trope of “till death us do part” by questioning the circumstances surrounding a mutual murder plot between two people who vowed commitment to one another, but have been driven to the edge of their sanity, so much so that they feel the only way out is through violence. This is not quite Mr. and Mrs. Smith (any of the three versions being relevant comparisons in some way), but it does have a lot of potential in how it investigates common conceptions of marriage – or rather, this is what it genuinely believes it is doing, since it is ultimately a very thematically shallow film, telling a story that seems interesting on the surface, but devolving into something that is much more shallow than we would expect at a cursory glance, which is both disappointing and frankly annoying considering how the original film took a similar approach, but with a lot more intelligent discourse driving it forward.

At a glance, it does seem like Over Your Dead Body would at least be entertaining based on the presence of the two leads. Jason Segel has done some fantastic work in recent years, effectively shedding the image of just being a lovable sitcom star, and actually proving to be a very strong actor who can balance comedy and drama exceptionally well, while Samara Weaving has grown into a prolific performer who always delivers across multiple genres. The pairing was unexpected but intriguing, and the prospect of seeing these two very different actors playing a couple engaging in a game of cat-and-mouse was certainly enough to pique our curiosity. Unfortunately, this is derailed by the arrival of a few additional characters, namely Segel’s bumbling co-conspirator, whose entrance signals the film’s immediate descent since he not only adds nothing to the story, but actively subtracts from the promising storyline with his overwrought acting and desperate attempts to be funny, and then eventually the trio of fugitives who have taken up residence in the cabin, and who become the true villains of the story. The fact that the film promises to be a story of a couple trying to kill each other before becoming something else entirely is not the fault of the director, since it is retained from the original film – but sadly, despite the presence of the incredibly talented Timothy Olyphant, as well as the solid Juliette Lewis and surprisingly decent Keith Jardine, the film can’t help but be entirely derailed, losing its charm and just becoming far too much of a mess. None of the actors is convincing in these roles, and it truly feels like they’re all just going through the motions – understandably, they are doing their best with a one-dimensional script in which the character development is virtually non-existent, but even their strong efforts are not nearly enough to keep us interested in this lacklustre material.

There is nothing more frustrating than encountering a film with a good premise that is ultimately squandered by lacklustre execution. There was so much potential lingering beneath the surface of Over Your Dead Body that it seems almost bewildering that it would fumble so many of its good ideas with such incredible incompetence, especially with a relatively decent filmmaker at the helm. Unfortunately, this is what happens when someone who is best known for broader comedy decides to take on a film originally written and directed by a filmmaker like Wirkola, who has mastered the art of the contemporary exploitation and action thriller, which is precisely what made the original film so impactful. Firstly, it is tonally a complete jumble – the original film had the kind of darkly comedic miserabilist humour often present in Scandinavian cinema, where the bleak realities of contemporary life interweaved with hilarious absurdity to create something much more layered. It also helped that it was directed by someone who knew how to craft action-packed sequences, paying attention not only to how a scene is staged, but also noting what it ultimately represents in terms of the overall story. This film missed that completely – it’s far too broad, believing that everything needs to be as outrageously funny as possible and therefore leaving virtually no room for nuance, which is a cardinal sin for this kind of satire. It also isn’t made very well, with Taccone seemingly thinking that throwing caution to the wind and creating something that was wall-to-wall action was enough to keep us engaged. It’s entertaining for the first act, but then quickly devolves into something far less impactful, the result of the director seemingly lacking the ability to see the ample opportunities to do something interesting, resorting to what he believes to be a pitch-black slapstick satire, but which instead emerges as far too bland.

There will be those who will throw the blame of this film against the original, claiming that Taccone was likely limited by the source material. Obviously, this is a weak response to what is evidently a much bigger problem, since we’ve seen countless examples of films that remake foreign works and either match their quality or, in some cases, actually improve on them, and therefore, this is not an excuse for what proves to be a monumental waste of time, a harsh but necessary criticism. There’s no reason for this film to be so overtly mediocre – it has a strong cast, a good director who has done solid work before, and a good concept. Its failure comes in the film’s inability to actually say anything of value – it tries too hard to be a carbon copy of the original film, which is already frustrating enough as it is, and made substantially worse by the fact that it never develops its own identity. Instead of doing anything even vaguely interesting, it chooses to be a one-dimensional work without any real reason to exist, other than being a lesser version of the original film, which was already an acquired taste (but at least had the good sense to market itself as such, rather than being this kind of misguided attempt at mainstream popularity), which is a notable problem considering this could’ve become its own bespoke work rather than just retreading the same ideas. Ultimately, Over Your Dead Body is nothing special, a film that tries to skirt around the edges of decency by being as violent as possible, without infusing any real substance. It’s a heavy-handed attempt at being an action-packed comedy, but somehow fails to be either thrilling or funny, which is one of the many reasons we can’t abide by the bizarre, tonally misguided nature of an otherwise promising story done an enormous disservice by this film.