The Story of Us is a 1999 American romantic comedy-drama film directed by Rob Reiner, and starring Bruce Willis and Michelle Pfeiffer as a couple married for 15 years.

The depiction of the marriage through a series of nonlinear flashbacks is reminiscent of Two for the Road (1967) starring Albert Finney and Audrey Hepburn, while the "interview" segments featuring characters addressing the camera directly as a therapist are reminiscent of Reiner's previous film When Harry Met Sally... (1989) starring Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan.

Sending their kids off to summer camp, Ben and Katie commence a trial separation, during which both try to recall what it is about the other that led them to fall in love in the first place.

The website's critical consensus reads, "A lack of chemistry between Bruce Willis and Michelle Pfeiffer fatally undermines the dull and predictable Story of Us.

[4] In The New York Times, Janet Maslin wrote: "The Story of Us offers such an arthritic vision of middle-aged marriage that it feels like the first Jack Lemmon comedy made expressly for the baby boom generation.

Perhaps that would explain the casting of Bruce Willis as a jokey but sensitive suburban Dad and Michelle Pfeiffer as his beleaguered spouse.

The stars, variously directed by Rob Reiner to kid around, look wistful or scream so hard that their necks turn red, are not helped by the film's elbow-in-the-ribs humor or its overbearing tactics.

"[5] In the Los Angeles Times, Kenneth Turan wrote: "A wannabe sensitive film that's scared of cutting too deeply, The Story of Us doesn't want to be real enough to jeopardize its homogenized humor.

While it's already hard to accept carefully photographed major stars like Willis and Pfeiffer as regular folks with everyday problems, it's even harder when both their fun and their fury seem slickly scripted.

"[6] In the Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert awarded the film a one star and wrote: "Gene Siskel used to ask if a movie was as good as a documentary of the same actors having lunch.

And who thinks the misery of this film can be repaired by a showboat monologue at the end that's well-delivered by Pfeiffer, but reads like an audition scene.

"[7] In the San Francisco Chronicle, Mick LaSalle wrote: "Anyone so naive as to turn to Hollywood for a wise and honest statement about marriage deserves this film... One thing the movie accomplishes: It shows how arguments can flare up out of nowhere and become shouting matches.

As for Pfeiffer, she spends so much time screaming at him for failing to fill the windshield wiper fluid container in the van that it's easy to forget she is one of the world's most beautiful women and gifted actresses.