I’ve said often that I’m not a fan of chick flicks. I approached ‘The Five Year Engagement’ with some trepidation as that is what it appeared to be in the credits. I saw that Judd Apatow produced this (creator of ‘Knocked up’ and ‘Forgetting Sarah Marshall’) film and that a lot of the actors from those films were in this one. I decided to give it a chance. I probably won’t admit this in public, but this was definitely a chick flick that I enjoyed. The thing that saves most Apatow movies from being chick flicks is their over the top guy humor. This one has it’s moments of superficial humor, but it has a much more depth and honesty in examining the modern day love affair.
Tom (Jason Segal) meets Violet (Emily Blunt) at a costume party and one year later he proposes as he knows Violet is the love of his life. With every intention of getting married, life keeps throwing Tom and Violet a series of curve balls that keeps them pushing off the wedding date. This is a story of the times we live in as love exists, but so does life. Both Tom and Violet have lives, but how do you make a life work together when your lives begin to travel down different paths? Violet has a successful academic career while Tom is an up and coming chef in San Francisco. In modern day relationships, men are expected to acquiesce to the woman’s wishes and Tom gives up his chef career to pursue Violet’s job at the University of Michigan. It’s a 2 year appointment and they agree to come back to San Francisco afterwards to pick up Tom’s career where it left off.
Tom puts on a good face, but as his dreams are far from realized in Ann Arbor compared to San Francisco, he becomes resentful of Violet’s success and of his own hourly wage existence. I know this sounds heavy, but the laughs are genuine and frequent and I was actually touched by the level of love and caring between Tom and Violet as they begin to panic as they realize their lives are heading down different paths. What compounds their frustration is that Tom’s simpleton and embarrassing best friend and Violet’s English tart of a sister (Chris Pratt and Allison Brie) find unlikely love at Tom and Violet’s engagement party and seem to have marital bliss. One note of complaint: I want to see a romance movie where the best friends aren't 'quirky' or 'zany'. The cliche gets a little tiresome after seeing it every time.
Unlike most films of this genre, 'The Five Year Engagement' doesn’t rely on conflict for its’ laughs or false depth. In fact, Tom and Violet do everything in their power to avoid conflict and that is some of the problem. They care for each other, they communicate, and they genuinely want only the best, but what do you do when your paths in lives diverge in a way that even the person you love can’t make you happy? The inevitable break-up is not one of anger and yelling, rather of sorrow and failure.
Tom goes back to San Francisco and as new relationships who seem better suited to their lifestyle enter both their lives, their thoughts always return back to each other Both seem to grow professionally and personally in their new relationships, but they never capture the magic of what they had with each other. I won’t go into how the story is resolved, but I just thought that the film handled the very difficult and modern problem of making a life work together in a mature and insightful way. The film was at it’s best when it didn’t provide easy answers.
As I read back over this, I feel I am over looking that this was a comedy and a funny one at that. It was just a comedy with some depth and maybe that’s why I‘m focusing so much on that aspect. It’s a great date movie if for nothing else than to spark some conversation if you are planning on going down the marriage route.
I will give this movie a tenuous 3 stars. Not Apatow’s best, but definitely the most honest. Extra points for a cool Van Morrison soundtrack as well.
*** stars
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