What is to account for the undeniable success of relationship kvetching film, The Break Up? It has earned $73.9 million at the box office thus far, and features no exploding buildings, flying people or millennially kept conspiracies.

All it features is Jennifer Aniston, whose last film Derailed wasn't a massive critical success or box office gem (grossing a little over $36 million dollars) and the timelessly querulous Vince Vaughn, who for a change plays a witty, scoundrelly prater. (Hmm)

If The Break Up keeps momentum, it has a chance of out-grossing Mission Impossible 3. If it loses steam, it still was the movie that almost out-grossed Mission Impossible 3. While not as successful a film as Wedding Crashers, the movie has certainly made some noise in a summer dominated by kid flicks and yet another Tom Hanks-runs-from-things cinematic wonder.

Is the success due to Vince Vaughn's emerging career as the dadaistic leading man of a new generation? Was it because the film offered millions of male moviegoers the possibility of Jennifer Aniston in lingerie supposedly performing comedy? Or did audiences merely want to "pick a side", playing along with the artificial marketing campaign of Him Vs. Her, welcoming back a returning trend of quirky, talky relationship movies?

Or could it be that the real life celebrity romance between Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn was just too scandalous to pass up? Vaughn had ridden the publicity train on talk shows and coyly denied anything and everything, while subtly coaxing viewers to see the scandal unfold at a theater near you.

Before you assume the worst, that is, that the mainstream movie going public has lost any concept of what good entertainment is and now just buys tickets to whatever is "controversial", (Never may we suggest!) we must remember that celebrity couple romance flicks are not always the most talked about tickets in town.

Remember the scandal with Meg Ryan and Russell Crowe in Proof Of Life? No? There you go. While scandal broke that Meg cuckolded Dennis Quaid with the hot young Australian, audiences preferred to watch Entertainment Tonight rather than buy a ticket to the onscreen sizzles.

Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck may have been on everyone's mind at some point, (though the publicity was possibly shoved down your face against your will) nobody remembers Gigli and the ones that do still shudder.

Then there was Mr. And Mrs. Smith. (And if you by accident rent the Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward underrated classic and become angered by the lack of giant guns and even bigger body parts, consider it a plate of vegetables for Halloween) Celebrity couple Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt (who probably have the combined intelligence of Billy Bob Thornton) made the scandalous B-movie soar to almost $200 million dollars at the box office.

What makes movies like Mr. And Mrs. Smith and The Break Up work while equally cloying romance scandal movies like Proof Of Life and Gigli explode into flames? I have to believe that the primary factor is in presentation; that is, the way that the romance is handled on screen, as respects to the wild sex presumably taking place off camera which everybody in the world knows about, public denial or not.

Meg Ryan and Russell Crowe's Hollywood affair was over and done with in a relatively short period of time. Hence, this fizzling showed in their art.

How about Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman in Eyes Wide Shut? A troubled relationship plagued with sexual concerns, location problems, and child rearing issues, all symbolically alluded to in Stanley Kubrick's last film. Audiences were not surprisingly exhausted from all the realism and stayed away,

With Bennifer, even an abundance of hype, million dollar weddings and rings, and a ton of over-exposure were unable to decorate a total lack of substance in the relationship. And so, the movie Gigli perfectly personified their love together.

Mr. And Mrs. Smith not only celebrated Angelina's adulterous scoring of Brad Pitt, it brought out all the big guns and fired away with excess. It was the cinematic equivalent of a fireworks show with lots of booze and New Year's Eve sleaziness. The art perfectly reflected the unapologetic, dishonest romance and audiences flocked to the bawdy spectacle.

Now, Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn (so what is this? Jince? Vinnifer?) are Hollywood's much talked about item and are presumably talking through all their problems. Problems in Hollywood, in celebrity relationships and in professional disappointments like Derailed and The Good Girl and Rumor Has It. (And Vince...well, it's mostly Jennifer talking here) And all of this talking is embodied in their new film The Break Up. Audiences do seem interested in repetitive but earnest soul searching dialogue and so went to listen to Vince and Jennifer argue over what is and what could have been with reticent curiosity.

Celebrity couple relationship movies are all about love and how art reflects their love, as well as the universal spirit of romance in all of us. I eagerly await the first Tom Cruise-Katie Holmes romance flick to explain to the movie going public just what exactly goes through Tom Cruise's intergalactic mind and how Katie romantically responds to each notion. Come on, now. The guy deserves a second chance in the game of love and certainly in expressing himself.