The Five Year Engagement - review

The tagline on the posters for this film says “from the producer of Bridesmaids”. But if you loved that lowbrow rom-com you’ll be sorely disappointed by this one.

British academic Violet (Emily Blunt) and Jewish-American chef Tom (Jason Segel), are smart and in love. They throw an engagement party and plan to marry soon yet keep being distracted, mainly by Violet’s desire for a career. This prompts them to move to Michigan, where her theory about stale doughnuts and “screwed-up people” attracts a lot of attention, especially from her boss (Rhys Ifans). Guess what? Soon everyone’s eating stale doughnuts.

Blunt and Segel are charming, subtle actors but they never convince as a couple. In fact, their comic rhythms jar and as a result there’s plenty of time to notice that the script is overlong and under-funny. Even a delightful encounter (Violet and her sister have a row while putting on muppet voices) feels dodgy. Given that Segel and director Nicholas Stoller co-wrote the recent Muppets movie, it virtually counts as product placement.

Nor does the fact that the female leads curse like sailors make it subversive. In fact, the film’s ending reassembles all the clichés about the “big day” that Bridesmaids — with its instinctively feminist nous — managed to deconstruct.

What do women want? Seriously, dudes! Not this.