If you're going to sit down and take in a romantic comedy called The Five-Year Engagement, you probably shouldn't expect the story that follows to clip along, breezily and joyously, without a hitch. It's right there in the title. Five years is a long time to wait, and watching a five-year engagement unfold, inch by inch, bit by bit, feels like watching a couple linger in limbo for, you guessed it, five long years. It didn't have to be that way, of course. With Forgetting Sarah Marshall director Nicholas Stoller at the helm, co-writer Jason Segel tackling the lead role, producer Judd Apatow sitting in the wings and a killer supporting cast at the filmmakers' disposal, The Five-Year Engagement should have flown by with furiously funny, deliriously pointed ease. Instead, it starts strong -- hilarious even -- and within a half hour settles in for the long, dreadfully dry haul, unsure if it wants to be a witty character comedy, a droll commentary on modern relationships, a silly R-rated man-child farce, or a meaningful dramedy. In some ways, it nails all four. But only one at a time, and often to the detriment of the other three.
"The first important thing to remember about marriage is that it requires commitment. The second important thing to remember about marriage is that so does insanity."
He's a successful San Francisco sous chef who enjoys gastronomy, the culinary arts and grand romantic gestures. She's a recent grad school graduate who enjoys intelligent conversation, sociological experiments and, yes, grand romantic gestures. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Tom and Violet (Jason Segel and Emily Blunt), the sweetest, most awww-inspiring couple you'll ever encounter this side of an engagement destined for five years of delays, trials and heartache. When Violet is offered a job halfway across the country at the University of Michigan, Tom doesn't flinch. He packs up his things, declines an offer of running his own restaurant, and heads off to the Wolverine State with his one true love. (Cause he's such a great guy!) Michigan isn't everything he thought it would be, though, and he soon finds himself slathering hot mustard on sandwiches in a college town rather than creating delicious, award-winning cuisine. But no matter. Just a few more months, right? Sure, until Violet is invited to stay on in a more permanent capacity. How much will Tom be willing to sacrifice? Will Violet realize Tom is morphing into a miserable mountain man right in front of her eyes? Will the once-happy couple be able to recover when everything seems to prevent those crazy, middle-aged kids from getting married?
The Five-Year Engagement runs aground the minute Tom becomes exactly what his best friend Alex (Chris Pratt) warns him to avoid becoming: a discontented martyr who refuses to be honest with his fiancé. And it all happens before the first act draws to a close. Gone is the Jason Segel we all love -- the giant, huggable lug who sweeps his wife off her feet on a weekly basis on How I Met Your Mother -- replaced by a self-loathing, handlebar-mustached wretch wallowing in a crumbling castle of his own making. Gone is the Emily Blunt we all adore -- the charming, delightful Brit who melts men's hearts and disarms her on-screen suitors -- shoved aside by a selfish success story who'd just as soon be rid of all that's dear to her if it means compromising her dreams. Gone too is the side-splitting comedy and most of the laughs, supplanted by a monotonous, boorish brute trying to pass itself off as an amusingly serious R-rated Apatow joint. Tom and Violet fight, which is exhilaratingly convincing at first, and fight, which grows a touch mean-spirited soon after, and fight and fight and fight. Soon he's growing disenchanted and distant, she's flirting with her supervising professor (Rhys Ifans), and we're left trying to remember what we enjoyed about Tom and Violet's company in the first place. Too much time is spent in the throes of distrust and disillusionment, too many months and years are spent on versions of the same downward spiral, and frankly, too many scenes are a waste of Segel and Blunt's appeal and talents.
Many of their castmates are squandered too. Pratt pulls off a daring genre heist, stealing the entire movie in several short scenes with little more than a thinly veiled variation of Andy from Parks and Recreation, and Ifans is his accomplice (even though the two don't share any screentime). But most everyone else comes and goes without leaving much of a mark. Community's Alison Brie (as Violet's sister) is so busy struggling with her awful English accent that her casting is baffling. (If only I could wipe the memory of her Elmo impression out of my mind.) Mindy Kaling, Kevin Hart and Randall Park (Violet's co-workers) earn three chuckles a piece then quickly wear out their welcome. Chris Parnell and Brian Posehn fall flat as Tom's new friends in Michigan. David Paymer (playing Tom's father) and the rest of the Solomon/Barnes extended families are lost in the shuffle too, quirkier than necessary and duller than intended. And in a romantic comedy that hinges on dropping memorable, oft-improvised lines and playing off the comedian or sitcom star to your right and left, all that swinging and missing piles up. Fast. The resulting deflation is even more noticeable in the film's Unrated cut, which adds seven minutes of unexceptional material to the mix; minutes that only slow down and weigh down the already lumbering proceedings.
Somewhere in the midst of it all is an ingenious rom-com, one that begins where most others end. For thirty or forty glorious minutes, it is that film, edging closer and closer to sharply penned, smartly delivered satisfaction. Unfortunately, The Five-Year Engagement is at its best in its first fifteen minutes. Everything that comes after that is a downhill slide.
Pleasant and inviting, if not a bit run of the rom-com mill, The Five-Year Engagement's 1080p/AVC-encoded video transfer fares quite well, particularly considering how often errant softness creeps in or director of photography Javier Aguirresarobe's Michigan photography drifts from crisp and colorful to bland and washed out. Most of it traces back to the source, of course, and much of that source is warm, vivid and lovely. The film looks its best before Tom and Violet traipse off to the banks of the Great Lakes, when their unwavering devotion to one another is all but invincible. Colors become a bit more subdued and black levels muted as their relationship fractures, but remain fairly satisfying, save the scenes shot in low light or shadow that bring with them an increase in noise and contrast inconsistencies. Detail thankfully remains strong, even if fine textures tend to range from well-resolved to north of adequate. Edge definition, meanwhile, is clean and refined on the whole, the film's delicate veneer of grain is intact, delineation is decidedly decent, and there aren't any real eyesores to report. Artifacting and banding are kept to a minimum, aliasing doesn't make an appearance, and crush is held at bay. Take all of that into account and you have a pretty good-looking presentation.
Par for the romantic comedy course, Universal's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track is a front-heavy affair with only a smattering of rear speaker activity. Engagement's music and songs work the room, filling the soundfield with familiar classics and sweet genre melodies, but everything else tends to mingle around the center channel. Low-end output is restrained as well, with only the film's general shenanigans and, again, its soundtrack utilizing the LFE channel for any substantial support. Dialogue is bright, clean and perfectly intelligible, though, and dynamics and interior acoustics are commendable. At the end of the day, The Five-Year Engagement sounds like a studio rom-com loaded with conversations, pillow talk, arguments and passionate reunions, which isn't all that distracting or all that remarkable.
Theatrical Cut and Unrated Version: Both the film's 124-minute theatrical and 131-minute Unrated cuts are incuded. The unrated version runs too long and its extra bits aren't all that memorable, but if you enjoyed The Five-Year Engagement the first time around, you'll probably fall in love with its seven-minutes of additions.
Audio Commentary: Co-writer/director Nicholas Stoller, producer Rodney Rothman, co-writer/actor Jason Segel (Tom), and actors Emily Blunt (Violet) and Chris Pratt (Alex) joke and jab their way through this chatty, uncensored, self-deprecating commentary sure to earn plenty of laughs, particularly if you're a big fan of Segel and Pratt. It isn't entirely uninformative, funny and tangential as it is, though it certainly doesn't offer much insight into the production.
Documentaries (HD, 52 minutes): "The Making of The Five-Year Engagement," a lengthy, revealing and refreshingly low-key 42-minute overview of every aspect of the production, from development to rehearsals to the soundstage and location shoots; "Gastrocule: The Making Of," a quick look at the filming of a deleted subplot in which Tom briefly opens and summarily burns down an upscale restaurant in Michigan; and "Turkey: The Making Of," an equally short glimpse at another deleted sequence in which a shroom-addled Thanksgiving is interrupted by a talking turkey puppet.
Extended and Alternate Scenes (SD, 46 minutes): Nineteen extended and alternate scenes follow, each one loaded with improv, insults, gags, one-liners and quotable bits that didn't make it into the film.
Like the relationship it tracks, The Five-Year Engagement is funny, passionate and invigorating... for a time. But it slowly, ever so slowly, settles into a rut, devlolves into a chore, and loses nearly all of the sparkle and magic it had in the beginning. A happy ending can only make up for so much, and this is yet another romantic comedy that rolls into its closing minutes with a lot to make up for. Universal's Blu-ray release is better, but still a bit too hit or miss. Its video transfer delivers and its supplemental package is full of goodies, but its DTS-HD Master Audio track underwhelms and some of its extras disappoint. Is The Five-Year Engagement worth the five years it seems to take watching it? Not really. It has its moments, sure, but there are just too many other promising genre prospects on the market to invest time in what will ultimately amount to a one-night Redbox'd stand.
Universal Studios Home Entertainment will bring The Five-Year Engagement to Blu-ray in August. This romantic comedy focuses on Tom and Violet (Jason Segel, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and Emily Blunt, The Devil Wears Prada), a seemingly happy couple who find their ...
The Five-Year Engagement Blu-ray, Forum Discussions
