‘The Intervention’ Review: Clea DuVall’s Directorial Debut Has a Gen-X ‘Big Chill’ Factor

Stick half a dozen or so old friends in a country house for a long weekend, add a dash of relationship dysfunction and life crises, and bam: instant movie.

There’s Annie (Melanie Lynskey), a jittery problem drinker approaching her oft-postponed wedding to the genial but mildly oblivious Matt (Jason Ritter); Jessie (DuVall) and Sarah (Natasha Lyonne), who after three years together are still a few steps shy of cohabitation; Jack (Ben Schwartz, “Parks and Recreation”) and Lola (Alia Shawkat), a May-December, or at least May-August, pairing whose maturity is belied by their respective ages — in short, six different flavors of mess, all stuck at, or in one case, recoiling from, life’s milestones.

Clea DuVall on Reuniting With 'But I'm a Cheerleader' Co-Stars for Her Directing Debut 'The Intervention'

By their friends’ standards, Peter (Vincent Piazza, “Boardwalk Empire”) and Ruby (Cobie Smulders) have it all: marriage, three kids, careers.

[...] they’re also the reason this group has converged, in hopes of splitting this acrimonious pair apart before their thoroughly poisoned union — what Annie calls “the weight of their marital prison” — does even greater damage.

The trouble is that the would-be interventioners have so much of their own stuff to sort through that they keep delaying the ostensible reason for their reunion; they have to find their balance before they have so much as a leg to stand on.

Peter and Ruby plainly loathe each other from the moment we see them, he yammering generic business-speak into his cellphone while she seethes in the passenger seat, but when they crush the opposing teams at charades, we’re reminded of the bond longtime couples share even when they’ve lost sight of how to love one another.

Watch for the way Lynskey suggests another character needs to take off his blinders, tentatively mimes removing an actual set of blinders, then thinks better of the gesture halfway through.