The Five-Year Engagement does do this on it's poster though. "From the Producer of Bridesmaids", is what it so proudly says. Again, it's misleading, because The Five-Year Engagement is much funnier than Bridesmaids.
The film follows Violet Barnes (Emily Blunt) and Tom Solomon (Jason Siegal) and straight away, Tom proposes to Violet. All seems to be going well, they are in love, Tom has a great job as second Chef at a thriving restaurant and Violet is waiting on being accepting into the University of Michigan. However, as they try to set the date for their wedding, things just keep getting in the way, like Violet's studies and her professor, Winton Childs (Rhys Ifans), Tom's new friendship with the weird Michigan locals, Bill (Chris Parnell) and Tarquin (Brian Posehn). As they slowly drift apart, it begs the question as to whether they will actually make it down the aisle or call off the engagement altogether.
Firstly, I have to congratulate the filmmakers and the writer for making a romantic comedy film that is equally enjoyable for males and females alike. While I can safely say, I wasn't looking forward to seeing this film, the silly comedy moments certainly made up for the fact that I was sitting in the cinema and watching a rom-com! Siegal and Blunt were perfectly cast in their roles and made the moments just seem really natural and fluid.
For a comedy film, there was rarely a moment that felt forced or pushed just for a laugh. The annoying friend, Alex (Chris Pratt) and Violet's sister, Susie (Alison Brie) were the perfect couple to offset the challenges that Tom and Violet were facing - Alex and Brie never really wanted to be together in the first place but got married and had children straight away... The systematic deaths of the grandparents was a brilliant way to show the passing of time, up the tension for the couple to hurry up and get married, but also provide a nice nod to Four Weddings and a Funeral and some extra laughs as well.
However, one gripe that I did have was that for a fluffy romantic comedy, the film did seem to be one of two halves. It sets itself up as a light-hearted romance film, but then takes a turn into The Break Up territory, where it seems to be the anti rom-com with a much darker and unhappier ending. While this would have been a good twist on the narrative, there seems to be a tacked one fifteen minute epilogue, where the film swerves back into the happy Hollywood ending. While it would have been a bit of a downer ending, it would have made the film stick out from the crowd. However the ending that the film does have seems like a massive rewrite, because it's sickly-sweet and completely inconceivable that anyone could really pull it off.
Another weird thing that the film does is that it tries to pull off scenes set in England that are obviously filmed in America. All of the grandparents live in the UK (for some reason), but when Violet systematically visits the UK for their funerals, it is such a slice of Americana that it's just too hard to swallow for the audience (it's bright an sunny and the Church is a wooden shack in the middle of flat prairie land... but the filmmakers use a London black cab, so all is well in the world!)
Despite those slight flaws, The Five-Year Engagement is actually a rather good comedy film that can also draw in the male crowd. It's just a shame that the film has been doing so badly in America and across the rest of the world, because as far as wedding-based comedies go, The Five-Year Engagement definitely beats Bridesmaids.
***½ / *****
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