With a pretty all-star cast, given its nature as a romantic comedy, I was pretty disappointed in The Five-Year Engagement, which really failed to deliver on either the comedy, or the romance, of which romantic comedies are typically made.
Normall, Jason Segel is funny, in a goofy kind of way, and there are only rare glimpses of that in this film, after he moves to Michigan with his fiancee (Emily Blunt) and he becomes a bit of a mountain man, making his own mean, and goblets from deer hooves. This is the Segel that we are more used to, and the one that we like. Aside from those few minutes in the film, he is pretty tame, and to be honest, pretty dull.
The story focuses on Tom and Violet, who get engaged a year after meeting. They start to plan the wedding, but life gets in the way, and they end up putting it off several times, until it is basically forgotten about, and they eventually break up, as people do in romantic comedies.During the delays in their wedding, they have to stand by and watch as Tom’s best friend gets Violet’s sister pregnant, and they marry and have a happy life. The secondary characters, Alex and Suzie, are played (and under-used) by Chris Pratt and Alison Brie. Both are very strong comedic actors, but they both fall pretty flat in this film, and there was something about Brie’s (who I love) British accent that really threw me off. I don’t know if the accent was bad or not, but it just didn’t sit right with me for some reason.
As it goes with romantic comedies, the couple ends their relationship, and we know that they are going to get things back together, because that is the way it goes. Really, there isn’t a grand romantic gesture until the end of the film, and it seems like Tom and Violet are going to give things another try, because, hey, why not? There isn’t much connection between the characters, and we always sort of wonder why they are together in the first place, since their time together seems to be pretty blah.
I will give The Five-Year Engagement this: it has a pretty awesome wedding at the end (don’t worry, it’s not really a spoiler, it is pretty predictable), that for the briefest of moments, made this overlong film worthwhile.
But in the end, this movie wasn’t that great. Even if a romantic comedy isn’t that funny, at least there is sometimes a genuine romance to fall back on, and it makes us feel better. But this film falls flat in both departments, make it one to skip over when scanning through Netflix. There are a ton of better romantic comedies out there.
A Gatsby Funeral 