Last night I attended an advanced screening of Couples Retreat starring an A-List ensemble cast including Vince Vaughn, Jon Favreau, Jason Bateman, Kristin Davis and Malin Akerman. Bateman's career was significantly revived in 2003 with the ground-breaking series Arrested Development and according to IMDb a full-length feature of the same name and creative team is slated for a 2010 release.  Davis played Charlotte York for all 6 seasons on Sex in the City and is currently filming the theatrical sequel to the first feature film released last year.  Akerman is best known for her starring role opposite Ben Stiller as his crazy new bride in The Heartbreak Kid and her big break came with the role of Liane in the cult classic Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle (which also brought Neil Patrick Harris' career back from the dead).

Retreat also gets outstanding supporting work from "Dr." Ken Jeong and John Michael Higgins who both play therapists on the island dubbed "Eden West"; not to be confused with "Eden East" which Vaughn's character refers to as "Hump Island" (Eden West is the couples resort and Eden East is the singles resort). These two actors in particular seem to be popping up in just about every movie and are having one heck of a year.  Jeong plays the riotously funny "Mr. Chow" in the recently released "The Hangover" as an Asian gangster in Vegas - "What are you talking about Willis, that's him!”  Higgins regularly appears in the DirecTV ads as a corporate boardroom stoog, he also recently played Jim Carey's friend in "Yes Man" and many may remember his side-splitting role in 2006's "The Breakup" playing Richard Meyers, Jennifer Aniston's a-cappella singing brother who opens a can of whoop ass on Vince Vaughn - "Gary, you can't take a pitch pipe out of someone's hand when they're in the middle of a very funky groove!"

Couples Retreat was penned by Favreau and Vaughn and has some great comedic dialogue and one-liners.  However, the film also attempts to be more than just a silly comedy and to have a soulful quality similar to the way The Breakup did.  Without spoiling it, I will say that the film deals with the struggles all couples face and comes to an overall conclusion that it is better to fight to keep a relationship together than to give up.

The cast also includes Faizon Love (mall manager from the Favreau-directed Elf), and Kristen Bell (Forgetting Sarah Marshall). Jean Reno, Peter Serafinowicz and Carlos Ponce also turn in memorable performances.  This movie is definitely worth seeing although I'm not sure if the version I saw at the screening will be the exact version released on October 9th.