Review: The Five Year Engagement

Although the elaborate rouse leading to his proposal is spoiled, San Fran sous chef Tom (Jason Segel) and psychology grad student Violet (Emily Blunt) get engaged. Tom is also in line for a promotion at the restaurant he works at, under the butch Lauren Weedman. Meanwhile, Tom’s best bud (Chris Pratt) and Violet’s sister (Alison Brie, an American sporting a flawless Brit accent to me. I didn’t even know!) have hit it off, and end up going down the aisle before Tom and Violet get a chance to. And then Violet gets accepted into a Michigan university, under professor Rhys Ifans. This is the first test of their relationship, as Tom agrees to move to Michigan for the sake of her career, at the expense of his own. That’s what couples do, and he’s OK with it. However, once there, Tom finds it hard to find a suitable job given his far more upmarket culinary experience is seemingly unnecessary in San Francisco. He ends up working in a sandwich shop with stoner-ish metal head Brian Posehn (in a performance that really stretches the guy, I’m sure). Meanwhile, Violet is getting very caught up in her research, and that professor sure is paying her a lot of attention. Things are obviously set to get worse before they get better. Jacki Weaver plays Violet’s cynical mother, Chris Parnell plays the sweater-sporting spouse of one of Tom’s co-workers, Dakota Johnson plays a bit of a blonde bimbo and possible relationship roadblock, David Paymer is Tom’s dad, Michael Ensign and the fabulously named Clement von Franckenstein are among the other relatives, whilst Mindy Kaling, Randal Park, and Kevin Hart play Violet’s fellow grad students.

 

The two main guys behind “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” are back (Jason Segel, who co-writes and stars, Nicholas Stoller, who directs and co-writes) with this film that, despite a misstep here or there, is one of the best, funniest, and most perceptive and honest romantic comedies to come along in ages. It’s certainly the only film where you’ll find two grown women having a serious conversation whilst talking like Elmo and Cookie Monster, respectively (I have no doubt that this scene is all Jason Segel. Muppets are his thing, as anyone who has seen “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” and “The Muppets” knows). And that is but one of the many hilarious moments in the film. Any moment featuring Brian Posehn or Randal Park is pretty much hysterically funny (Comedienne Mindy Kaling, however, gives a forced performance that is always ‘on’, and thus grates on one’s nerves). Chris Pratt gets one genuinely funny speech where he recounts all of Segel’s ex’s to the tune of Billy Joel’s excellent ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire’. Posehn’s drunken speech later in the film is hysterical too. Outside of that, his performance felt a bit stiff to me. Meanwhile, although she barely gets any screen time, it’s amusing to hear our own (two-time Oscar nominee!) Jacki Weaver making dry comments about marriage. Something tells me she’s had a bit of experience with dud husbands.

 

Jason Segel and the absolutely stunning Emily Blunt are two of the most charismatic leads a romantic comedy could wish for (albeit goofy-looking, in Segel’s case). I’m not sure if the chemistry they seem to have on screen is anything more than a deep friendship, but hey, a deep friendship isn’t the worst place for a loving relationship to start, and their combined star quality pretty much does the rest. You’re with them from the opening scene involving a supremely nervous Segel’s attempts to create a ruse on his way to proposing to Blunt. Their sometimes quirky (just look at how they met), funny rapport is really lovely, actually and they convince you as a couple immediately. Even when their characters don’t behave in the best and most selfless way possible, you want these two to make it work, and the actors are the chief reason for this, I think.

 

Personally I think the film loses its way a tad on the road to its climax, but I think that’s got less to do with their characters exhibiting unlikeable behaviour and more to do with an abrupt jump forward in time (**** SPOILER WARNING **** I can understand some people feeling less sympathetic towards Blunt when she ends up hooking up with Rhys Ifans after having protested earlier that their almost-indiscretion was meaningless. It’s so clunkily done that you’d swear an explanatory scene was cut, perhaps for pacing reasons, but it results in a jarring effect. And why does Segel concede that he cheated on Blunt when we see absolutely no evidence of it on screen? Parts of the later stages of the film play out a bit clunkily to say the least. **** END SPOILER ****), but by and large these are likeable, interesting, and seemingly real characters, much more real than the usual cookie-cutter romantic leads we’ve been subjected to in the years since “When Harry Met Sally” pretty much set the benchmark for romantic comedies, that every film since has failed to reach, let alone surpass (The best in recent years? “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World”, though that was aimed at a slightly younger set. It’s still a romantic comedy at heart, though).

Basically, it’s a romantic comedy for grown-ups, despite Segel and particularly Blunt still being relatively youthful. I’m pretty much smitten with Emily Blunt (who isn’t?), but part of her appeal in the past has been her slightly ‘unattainable’ vibe, she’s like the popular girl at school who you adore but have absolutely no chance with. But you want her anyway. Ain’t that always the way? Interestingly here in a comic setting, her appeal is for once, a bit more down-to-Earth, even if the movie star glamour is still there. Maybe it’s because being in a comedy allows her to relax a bit more, or something. I dunno, but she’s terrific and enormously appealing, even when her character might not always be.

 

The early scenes of Segel and Blunt trying to make things work, and still seemingly happy together, are especially enjoyable, and also very relatable. However, that doesn’t mean I have issues with the darker parts of the film simply because the film is no longer fun or optimistic. That would be a silly complaint. No, my only other gripe with the film is that some of the humour is more in line with producer Judd Apatow and co-writer/star Segel than it is with the specific characters in the film (Apatow blended this humour and seriousness more effectively in his own “Funny People”, though this film overall is still very good too). The whole segment with Segel going through an early mid-life crisis and turning into a bizarro redneck/Sasquatch combo is at odds with the more realistic, observational humour in the rest of the film. It doesn’t feel organic to the material (which mostly plays like a comedic “Blue Valentine”), and isn’t particularly funny (in what is an otherwise consistently funny film), despite Chris Parnell making me laugh for the first time in his entire mediocre career.

 

But when this film gets it right, it’s thoroughly winning stuff, far better than most of its kind. And even when it kinda gets things wrong, you’ve got Rhys Ifans inexplicably showing himself to be a parkour expert, hilariously. So it never gets to be boring, that’s for sure. It’s also better than Stoller and Segel’s previous “Forgetting Sarah Marshall”, fine movie as that was in its own right. It’s a very interesting and entertaining look at the kinds of dilemmas and hurdles most romantic comedies don’t concern themselves with (Although possible infidelity is definitely a romcom cliché). That is to say, most of these films don’t tell you how hard work relationships can be, especially if you’re gonna be in it ‘til death do you part.

 

Funny, perceptive, honest, and well-cast, this is easily one of the best films of the year. Just don’t expect the usual fluffy date movie, because this one’s got a bit of bite to it. Oh, and one more thing: Is Emily Blunt single? Do you think she might go out with me?

 

Rating: B