“The Five-Year Engagement” on IMDB
Romance/Comedy, 124 Minutes, 2012
[Hurricane Sandy is currently causing all kinds of hell for all kinds of people. Here in Scranton, PA we’ve still got power and Internet (at least for now). We’re going to watch movies until either Sandy puts a stop to it or we can actually leave the house.]
Yeah, another rom-com (I am married, after all). Not a bad one, as far as they go, but pretty true to type. Tom (Jason Segal, IMDB) and Violet (Emily Blunt, IMDB) are in love, storybook-style. The get engaged and it’s not long until life tosses some obstacles in their way and we get to watch while they work through them.
Segal’s writing is improving with each outing. The dialog flows well and sounds, for the most part, natural and realistic (something that most rom-coms simply can’t begin to claim). The characters are warmly oddball without being annoying. The circumstances go right to the edge of unbelievability but never cross the line. Segal is a likable doofus, as always, and Blunt is as disarmingly charming as ever. They have an understated, but authentic, chemistry that carries the story through some (rare) rough spots.
The only real issue that I would raise is that the pacing is a little off – you’ll feel the length of this one by the end. It could have been at least 25 minutes shorter and likely would have been better for it. Still, if you’re forced into rom-com territory this isn’t a bad place to end up.
I find Segal’s writing, his plots are fairly true to life.