“Five-Year Engagement”
Engages Its Audience
Reviewed by Shirrel Rhoades
I watch “How I Met Your
Mother” about ten times a week, counting reruns and its regular Monday nighttime
slot on CBS. It’s funny, partly due to the big-lovable-lug performance of Jason
Segel. I liked Segel in the movie “Forgetting Sarah Marshall.” And more
recently in “The Muppet Movie.” And just last week in “Jeff Who Lives at Home.”
Now he’s turning up again
on the big screen in “The Five-Year Engagement.”
Okay, enough already. I
may have to cut back on “How I Met Your Mother” reruns.
“The Five-Year Engagement”
– currently playing at the Tropic Cinema – aims at being a romantic comedy in
the vein of “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” and “The Bridesmaids.” Not surprising
since director Nicholas Stoller also gave us that Sarah Marshall rom-com. And
the producers gave us “The Bridesmaids.”
Here, Segel takes on the
typecast role of a guy who is likeable but unable to succeed in romance. Tom Solomon (likeably
played by Segel) and Violet Barnes (charmingly played by Emily Blunt) keep
postponing their wedding because of career conflicts. After five years and
various funerals, the relationship becomes a mite strained.
“Any
ideas when this wedding might happen?” asks a relative.
“Grandparents
do have a tendency to die,” adds her mother.
“Mum,
they’re all right there,” says Violet, nodding at the lineup of relatives in
the Skype hookup.
“Well,
for now,” comes the warning.
Segel
and Blunt wring some predictable laughs out of this old washcloth. Add some
dark humor and physical comedy and you’ll have a movie hoping to clean up at
the box office the way “The Bridesmaids” did.
However,
the producers could take a hint from one of Violet’s girlfriends, who says, “It’s
your wedding. You only get a few of them.”
srhoades@aol.com
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