Jennifer Aniston savours irony of The Break-Up

LOS ANGELES - When she was in the middle of breaking up with her husband Brad Pitt last year, Jennifer Aniston was asked to do a movie called The Break-Up.

The former Friends star says she loved the irony of the title and thought the whole idea "funny". So she said yes to the movie which opens this week in the US.

She says it was one of the best things she ever did even though she now has another irony to ponder. Just days before the movie was to open, Pitt and his new love Angelina Jolie became parents of a baby girl, touching off a tabloid feeding frenzy that overshadows The Break-Up or any movie.

But the world of Pitt and Jolie seemed far away when Aniston met the press recently to discuss how one of the world's most celebrated divorcees could take sheer joy in making a film called The Break-Up.

Billed as a romantic comedy, The Break-Up is intentionally lacking in romance and its comedy derives from the discomfort involved in two people breaking up.

Some people wonder, why go to the movies to watch something you can see at home? But others at a recent screening were convulsed with laughter at how Aniston and co-star Vince Vaughn manage to destroy their on-screen relationship. Off-screen, the couple is widely reported to be romantically involved.

Aniston said that her break-up with Pitt, her husband of five years, played a part in helping her nail down her role.

"At the time I thought, you can't believe this. When I got the phone call ... I kind of laughed and thought that was funny. I thought (the title) was a sign that I should do it. It was in a way a cathartic thing. I was lucky. If this had come to me at any other time in my life, I don't know if I would have got it in the way I would need to as an actor."

Reporters carefully avoided direct questions about Pitt, Jolie or Vaughn as they tried to get her comments on what makes some relationships work and other fail.

"Your movie ends on a positive note without the couple falling into each other's arms," one questioner asked, adding, "Is it important for a relationship to have closure?"

Absolutely, said Aniston. "I think that is important for any relationship, romantic, friendship or work or otherwise to have a sense of closure and clarity as to why it happened .... so that you can move cleanly into your next phase."

Clearly Aniston was in her next phase and she had some advice for the reporters: don't try to compromise in a relationship; try instead to collaborate.

"Compromise sounds like such a compromising word. Collaboration is a better way of saying what you need and want so that it is not a threat to the other person."

- REUTERS