Review

THE FIVE YEAR ENGAGEMENT

Released: 2012
Director: Nicholas Stoller
Starring: Emily Blunt & Jason Segel

Grade: C
 

There's a ten minute chunk in the middle of The Five Year Engagement that perfectly encapsulates everything the movie gets right and everything it gets horribly wrong. In one scene, a late night bedroom chat slowly builds into a full-blown argument and ends with a sweet epilogue. It's a well-acted, well-paced moment that manages to be both honest and funny. In the next scene Jason Segel has grown a mountain man beard and serves his guests venison pie as everyone drinks from mugs made out of deer hoofs. It’s gross, painfully unfunny, and a complete tonal shift the film never quite recovers from.

Tonal shifts (which were also an issue in Salmon Fishing in Yemen, the last Emily Blunt film I reviewed) are one of my biggest pet peeves in filmmaking. I'm willing to get on board with just about any world a filmmaker wants to create and I love films that play around with structure, but there should be some consistency in the world of the film. All films require the audience to suspend its disbelief and accept the world of the film. That world is usually established within the first fifteen minutes of the film and breaking it is jarring and confusing for the audience. In other words, once Lord of the Rings is firmly established as a dramatic fantasy, it shouldn't introduce an alien invasion in the third film. (See also: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull). 

The Five Year Engagement starts out as a charming film about a relatively grounded love affair between two sarcastic people. It's got a low-key, hangout vibe and while some of the supporting players are a little heightened, the whole thing feels fairly realistic. To jump into an over-the-top comedy halfway through the runtime only serves to remind the audience that there is an outside force controlling the world onscreen. It's a shame that such a drastic derailment is inflicted on an otherwise charming film.

As the film opens Tom (Jason Segel), is nervously headed to an elaborate proposal with his girlfriend of one year, Violet (Blunt). She notices his odd behavior and he spills the beans on the plan. It's a charming moment between the two and immediately establishes both as enjoyable characters. Seeing a big-foot-sized man nervous is always funny and Violet's immediate apology over spoiling the surprise subverts a lot of expected rom-com cliches. In a lesser movie, Violet would have thrown a fit over having the surprised ruined (in the way high-strung-female-characters are wont to do in rom coms). Instead, Violet is overjoyed and eager to continue with the Tom's plan, even though she knows how it will end.

Emily Blunt is one of the best rom com actresses working right now and she brings a lovely improvisational feel to her dialogue. Her characters tend to be smart, funny and rational in a way most female rom com characters aren't. I don't know if the credit lays with Blunt's acting, or if she just picks good scripts for herself, but it's refreshing to see an actress play a rational rom com heroine for once. Segel is her equal in every way, bringing the same loping, goofy quality he's known for on How I Met Your Mother.

After the initial engagement, a series of various setbacks and surprises continue to push back the date of the wedding. Violet's sister Suzie (Alison Brie) finds herself pregnant and quickly marries the father, Tom's best friend Alex (Chris Pratt). (On a side note this means a Community actor marries a Parks & Rec actor. I don't watch either show but I'm sure TV nerds everywhere are passing out from the sheer joy of it all).

Violet gets accepted to a Psychology PhD program at the University of Michigan and the two decide to officially postpone the wedding and move to Michigan. Violet and Tom exchange sunny San Francisco (where Tom works as a chef) for snowy Ann Arbor (where Tom gets a job at a fast food joint). As Violet blossoms (pun intended!), Tom wilts, feeling stifled by the small-town-deer-hunting mentality of Ann Arbor, but trying to hide his unhappiness for Violet's sake. Everything starts out well enough, with Blunt and Siegel establishing some very believable chemistry and a theme of sacrifice building nicely. And then things take a turn for the bizarre.

The film was marketed as being "from the producers of Bridesmaids" and about half way through it seems someone decided there wasn't enough crudeness to warrant that label and decided to up the ante. The late night fight scene I mentioned earlier marks the films high point and pretty much the last moment I truly enjoyed. The fight occurs because Violet has been offered an extension on her program that would require the couple to stay in Michigan for several more years. Tom feels like he is giving up his dreams for Violet, Violet is afraid of giving up her dreams for him. It's a well-written scene that manages to be both touching and funny. Tom announces he wants to be alone, but stops Violet when she starts to climb out of bed. "I just want to be alone with you." It's a sweet line that again plays against the traditional conventions of romantic comedy fights. It's a shame the film can't trust moments like this one to carry the comedy.

Instead things go horribly awry and Tom becomes a bizarre caricature of himself complete with muttonchops and an obsession with deer hunting. I know I'm harping on this shift a lot, and part of me thinks I shouldn't let it ruin what began as strong film, but it does a gross disservice to an otherwise likable character in a way that is neither believable nor funny. This scene is so weird that my roommate and I felt certain it was a bizarre dream-sequence. The film went on for a good twenty minutes before we realized no one was going to wake-up and set the world right again.

Tom's downfall drives the couple apart and one drunken night Violet kisses her professor/colleague Winton (a very reserved Rhys Ifans). Guilt ridden, Violet reaffirms her love for Tom and decides to restart plans for their wedding. Much less picky this time around, the two agree on an unwanted Korean wedding cake and a moose-loge reception. At the last minute however, Violet confesses her indiscretion and Tom can't seem to shake it from his mind. At their rehearsal dinner he chases Winton through the streets in a scene that works better than it should due to Ifans' smart choice to underplay everything in a that oh-so-British way. Tom drunkenly sort-of hooks-up with a coworker (in another painfully unfunny scene that relies much too heavily on the crazy-sex-driven-woman trope), passes out in the snow and has a toe amputated. (I'm not exaggerating when I say things get weird). Tom and Violet breakup, he moves back to San Francisco and she shacks up with Winton.

It was at this point that I began to check my watch pretty regularly. The film clocks in at two-hours and the repetitive nature of the on-again/off-again wedding plans make it feel even longer. Showing Violet and Tom in their post-engagement-breakup relationships feels like a waste of time, particularly when it seems obvious the two of them will end up back together before long. That reunion comes at Violet's grandmother's funeral (the death of grandparents is a running joke throughout the film). Tom and Violet decide to take things slowly over the summer and then, of course, realize they are actually meant for each other. In the last fifteen minutes the film suddenly seems to remember it's supposed to be a romantic comedy and turns out all of the stops with not one, but two proposals, and a goofy pick-your-own-adventure-wedding. 

I could quibble with the fact that Violet and Tom agreeing to get married without settling those crucial issues like where they'll live is kind of disconcerting. The film is pushing hard for an it-will-never-be-perfect theme, but that is largely ignoring the fact that it's probably a good idea to have conversations about where to live and whether or not to have kids before tying the knot. Since we're living in the rom com world where romance trumps all, I can't really criticize the film for taking the easy way out. 

The ultimate problem is that The Five Year Engagement tries to be both a slice-of-life romance and a crude comedy and doesn't really succeed at either. There are some well written and well acted moments, such as when Violet argues that Winton kissed her rather than the other way around and Tom replies "There was a reason he felt like that was an option." The film is really at it's best when it just lets it's leads hang out together, but unfortunately Blunt and Siegel spend more time apart than together onscreen. The supporting characters are largely too over the top (a common complaint in these reviews) and pull too much focus from the central story. I could have done entirely without the Alex/Suzie romance and their rapidly aging children (their supposedly five-year-old child looks like she's about nine). On the other hand, Mindy Kaling, as one of Violet's colleagues, manages to steal just about every scene she's in. (Which I also complimented her for in my review of No Strings Attached.) Her deadpan delivery of "I would eat ten million donuts after watching The Notebook" is in the running for best lines of the movie. Like Blunt, Kaling manages to deftly make her dialogue seem improvised and genuine.

Unlike a typical rom com, The Five Year Engagement tries to engage (pun also intended!) with some more serious themes. Sacrifice, compromise and honesty are touched upon throughout and given Violet's degree in psychology, there's also a lot about delayed gratification. Eat a stale donut now or wait twenty minutes for a fresh one. It's a rather silly metaphor but it's a stab at something a little deeper than just romantic fun. The characters, despite their goofiness, have a certain maturity about them and I appreciate that Violet and Tom's breakup is done on polite terms, rather than in an overblown fight. Likewise, their reunion feels like a natural progression rather than a plot development. Without the bizarrely unfunny bits and with a less hokey ending, there might be a pretty great movie hidden inside The Five Year Engagement. 

Reality factor: I’ve talked enough about the fact that I don’t like when movies shift from a realistic tone to a heightened one, so instead let’s just talk about how cool it is that we get a male character giving up his career to support the career aspirations of a female one. It's not a common storyline in any medium and it's nice to see that Violet's career is taken as seriously as Tom's. (I'm getting shades of Friday Night Lights here. Come on y'all.)  [3 out of 5]

Eye-candy factor: Lily would probably be excited to see Jason Segel half-naked, but I’m not sure I am. [2 out of 5]

Aww factor: Blunt and Segel have a believable chemistry that keeps their relationship grounded even as the movie spins out of control. Also Emily Blunt as a weird sex-mime is simultaneously hilarious and sweet. [4 out of 5]