THE FIVE-YEAR ENGAGEMENT (MA 15+)
Where: General release
When: Opens Thursday
THE opening five minutes of The Five-Year Engagement goes something like this: boy and girl meet at New Year’s Eve party, fall madly in love, spend the next year wandering around San Francisco in a blissful state and get engaged.
The latest comedy by master producer Judd Apatow (The 40 Year Old Virgin, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Bridesmaids) starts where so many romantic comedies end – with good reason. This isn’t another Hollywood romance, but rather a film about what happens when careers, ambition and real life problems dilute what made a relationship special in the first place.
Apatow collaborator Jason Segel (who wrote the screenplay with Get Him to the Greek writer Nicholas Stoller) plays Tom, a San Franciscan sous chef who has it all – money, a great apartment, a promotion to head chef in the wings and a perfect partner in psychology graduate Violet (Emily Blunt). The wedding is postponed when Violet receives a terrific two-year job offer at a Michigan university. Tom, putting the relationship first, offers to move to across the country to support his fiance, to her delight.But he can’t score a chef job in his new (always snowing) city, and ends up in a ‘‘gourmet’’ sandwich bar only a step up from Subway alongside a collection of oddballs.
As his misery increases, he questions his own masculinity and worth while maintaining a front that all is fine. It comes to a head about two-thirds through as the couple realise they’re ‘‘almost perfect’’ for each other. Segel wonders whether almost perfect is worth giving up his career for. As has been the case with some of Apatow’s recent movies (such as Funny People), the running time is long. At more than two hours, it could have been trimmed by 30 minutes in the middle sequences where a depressed Segel grows a bushy beard and becomes a hunter.
But the two leads are a joy, and the extended cast works well (special mention to ‘‘our’’ Jacki Weaver). There’s an enormous amount of heart and depth in here, and anybody who has ever compromised a dream or ambition for love will find something to relate to.
