The Five-Year Engagement ☆☆☆☆

I really want to discuss all the things I loved about this movie but can't without spoiling it, so as I have done previously I will give a synopsis and a brief review, then give major warnings before launching into a spoiler filled analysis.

The story then follows Tom (Jason Segel) and Violet (Emily Blunt) who have been together for a year before Tom pops the question on New Years Eve. Tom works as a sous-chef in a successful Clam restaurant in the San Francisco bay area where Violet is a British psychology graduate who, for an undisclosed reason lives in San Francisco along with her sister and I'm assuming her Father and his wife (her Mum I assumed lived in the UK as she was on Skype with her parents chatting to Violet about wedding plans).

After an enthusiastic beginning to their engagement the brakes are soon put on as Violet is offered a post-doctorate position at a University in Michigan - for those who have no idea about US geography it is the North of the country, nestled close to Canada. Tom gives up his job (which would have been running his own kitchen) to go with Violet who flourishes at the University, while Tom gains weird friends and is reduced to working in a sandwich shop. Hilarity ensues and also some sadness, but I won't spoil anything - yet.

The ups and downs of the relationship are explored really well. There are many laugh out loud moments, particularly in the banter between Tom and his strange Michigan friends (there are some fetching jumpers on display and interesting facial hair). The relationship between Tom and Violet too is believable, it really comes across the friendship that they have in real life. It is also not weird that Violet is British as Segel actually wrote the part for Blunt, but I think I would have liked some explanation of why her sister is in the USA - Violet being a post-doctoral psychology person in the USA is believable as many people go to the States to study.

Even without hearing a podcast from Emily Blunt about the improv its quite obvious there was a lot of that going on, which created some really funny moments. Alison Brie as Suzie, the sister who gets knocked up (its in the trailer so I'm not spoiling anything), has actually got a fairly decent British accent going on, sometimes it even sounds less put upon than Blunts - where that is her actual voice. I love Brie (the cheese too) and love that she can do serious acting in such shows as Mad Men but also be a complete goon in things like Community. One of my favourite lines in the movie came from her as she describes herself as 'a little bit pregnant', fabulous line and said as though she were a Roehampton native.

Chris Pratt as Tom's fellow Chef and best friend Alex is also really very funny, there is a singing moment and I swear to the gods I almost peed myself with both laughter and embarrassment. Pratt is no stranger to the oddball comedy either as he currently stars in Parks and Recreation (which isn't big over in the UK) and he has some priceless moments in this film befitting his TV background.

The rest of the supporting cast were all excellent, the parents of the would-be bride and groom really quite funny and also massively cringe-worthy, and the head chef at Tom's first workplace was just plain old weird. In fact the chef character is a stock one for these kinds of movies, someone tough and aggressive but has a heart of gold and never actually seems to smile.
Rhys Ifans as Violets boss is very good, also gets to be Welsh which is nice to hear, and plays the role with enough 'cool academic' and bit of a sleazebag mix to be totally believable. I swear I have met academics like him.

I very much enjoyed the film, as the star rating shows, and it continues to prove what an absolute asset Jason Segel is to comedy and romance - come on guys, he's the man who brought back The Muppets and the one who continues to make How I Met Your Mother worth watching.
At 124 minutes this is a fairly long movie, however if you love a decent rom-com with some weird moments you'll really enjoy this film. I laughed a lot and pretty much just wanted to hug Jason Segel the whole way through.



Right - SPOILER TIME!!!

Don't read this unless you have seen the film as its going to be quite haphazard and assume you've already seen it.



One of my favourite parts of this film is where Tom just gives up on his life and dreams while in Michigan, grows the weirdest looking beard, wears the oddest jumpers that his 'friend' Bill knits while he stays at home with the kids, and turns his and Violet's house into a shrine for deer parts and becomes a bee keeper...totally and utterly crazy but hilarious.

The violence that is inflicted upon Emily Blunt is so shocking but so very funny - when her niece shoots her in the leg with a hunting cross-bow I burst out laughing. It was then really good to see that the skit carried on when Alex was yelling at Tom for his irresponsibility Violets eyes were never quite in focus. Just great acting by the group.

The sex scenes were fairly weird, and more frequent than I imagined they would be. Though I'm pretty sure Blunt was pleased she only had to do one, the rest was just lots of snogging. When Tom fakes his orgasm it was the most hilarious thing I've seen about orgasms in a while, I think the last time I saw a man fake an orgasm on screen was in 40 Days and 40 Nights which was back when Josh Hartnett was the hottest young actor in Hollywood.

There was a small theme of cutting off digits, when the chef cuts her finger off and the blood spatters everywhere it was so gross but very funny (and a genuine risk!) and then Tom loses his big toe to frostbite! Utterly bizarre and never mentioned again, I imagine it would hinder a person when running or walking to lose your toe yet when running through the park to finally get married he has no trouble.

The ending was really lovely and not at all sugary, ok yes it was sweet but it wasn't syrupy. The speed wedding was funny and such an easy and ideal way to get married. It was also brilliant that it was the girl who organised the whole thing and proposed to her man - making him the happiest girl in the world.
*sigh*

I loved that the pressure to get married as soon as possible in the beginning came from Violets Mother talking about how the grandparents did not have long to live, but it was the death of the last one about six years later that actually got Tom and Violet back together. But in actual fact getting married after only a year just wasn't right for Tom and Violet, okay so had she got the dream job in Berkley it would have worked out fine but life just isn't simple like that.

This is what I appreciate most from Segel's writing, apart from bringing back the Muppets, and that is the realism he injects into the bizarre humour. It can be totally off the wall but you recognise that Tom and Violet were totally unhappy and needed to split up, that life isn't perfect and if you are willing to work at it a couple will find their way back to each other.

The Chris Pratt and Alison Brie partnership was brilliant, from knocking her up at her sisters engagement party to the weird duet at Tom and Violets wedding the couple managed to steal every scene they were in. I think that was their point, they were not supposed to be the wallflower type supporting cast, they were designed to be obnoxious. And it really worked.

Finally I'd like to just mention Ming, who was so so funny. I realise he was a comedic tool, the Far East Asian man who is obsessed with a psychological experiment to cover a sleeping man in fake blood, chicken feathers, put a gun in his hand, and scream in his ear. Just to see what happens. He was the best of all Violets co-workers at the University, and I was so pleased he got to complete his experiment, even if he did choose the most emotionally unstable man in the world to test it on (who also happened to be one of Toms strange Michigan friends).

I really genuinely loved this movie. Long may Jason Segel continue to write about both Muppets and romantic relationships going wrong.