Unreal Movie Review: The Five-Year Engagement

Yes, it’s yet another romantic movie review, but unlike The Vow and The Lucky One, this one is rated-R. Swearing! Vulgarity! While that alone might now be enough for me to retake my manhood as a reviewer, The Avengers will take care of that this weekend, and I did genuinely want to see The Five-Year Engagement.

It strikes two personal chords with me, as I am indeed newly engaged, planning a rather far off wedding, and also almost the entire film was shot about four miles away from me in my city of Ann Arbor, Michigan. But familiar storefronts and inside Michigander jokes do not necessarily a good movie make.

The plot is an unfortunate circumstance that many couples come across. When two people have jobs, whose takes precedence when moving across the country is required? Even though Tom (Jason Segel) is an up and coming chef in San Francisco, when his fiancée Violet (Emily Blunt) gets offered a dream gig at the University of Michigan doing research, he packs up his knives and heads out to the frozen tundra, which is at least how the state is portrayed. Which is entirely accurate for about seven months out of the year.

INACCURATE! They are not wearing North Face and Uggs.

As Violet becomes more and more involved in her new position, the wedding gets postponed time and time again. While accepting of her job at first, Tom starts to go stir crazy, forced to work at  a local sandwich shop instead of a five-star restaurant like he’s used to. He takes the whole Michigander experience quite literally, and grows out mutton chops and takes up deer hunting in his spare time.

It’s just not a pleasant situation, and I don’t really think “relationship issues” alone are enough to build a movie around. I was reminded of the recent film Going the Distance with Drew Barrymore and Justin Long, which was just about two people suffering through a long-distance relationship. It sucks, as does overly long engagements and sacrificing your career for another, and as such it’s hardly the most entertaining thing to watch as the basis for a comedy.

Stranger still, The Five-Year Engagement manages to be over two hours long, which is quite lengthy for a rather fluffy and insipid romantic comedy. Yes, the R-rating gives it a bit of edginess above and beyond the usual movies in this genre (director Nicholas Stoller of Forgetting Sarah Marshall obviously has experience with that), but I can’t think of one memorable moment that isn’t ingrained in my mind because I saw it in the trailer ten times.

Still the funniest part.

The film is bloated because of an overabundance of supporting characters, almost all one-note parts meant to extract a laugh or two because the fact is, the central couple just isn’t that funny. I was impressed that the film managed to take cast members from all four of NBC’s Thursday comedy shows in put them in various parts. Parks and Recreation’s Chris Pratt is Tom’s friend who ends up married to Violet’s sister, Community’s Alison Brie doing her best British accent. The Office’s Mindy Kaling is a fellow researcher while 30 Rock’s Chris Parnell is a sweater loving man-friend of Tom’s. Then there’s the awkward sandwich shop employee, the lesbian chef, the scheming professor, the stereotypical asian and two full sets of quirky parents. The list continues far beyond this, and there are simply too many characters in the film.

There are funny moments scattered throughout, but the central story isn’t quite compelling enough to make the film work as a whole. Despite its crudity, it does end up being rather formulaic in the end, and there’s nothing that sets it apart the way other Apatow-ish films have seemed unique. It has a few of the correct pieces, but not enough of them to assemble anything worth watching.

2 out of 5 stars