The Five-Year Engagement Review

Plot Summary:
After dating a year, Tom (Jason Segel) proposes to his girlfriend Violet (Emily Blunt). However, unexpected events keep tripping them up as they look to walk down the aisle together.

The Positives:
I tend to enjoy the comedic writing team of Jason Segel and Nicholas Stoller. I have enjoyed their previous films: Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Get Him to the Greek and The Muppets. Although I believe this is their weakest effort as a team, the film has some positives.

For starters, I really enjoyed the casting. Jason Segel and Emily Blunt are great in their respective roles as the engaged couple who encounters many problems. Their performances seemed very natural for the situations they go through. I also really enjoyed the supporting cast: Rhys Ifans, Kevin Hart, Chris Pratt, etc. However, Brian Posehn provides the best lines in the movie.

One thing Stoller and Segel tend to write well is the comedic situations they go through. The one-liners for the most part are very hilarious. The physical comedy is what makes the film really work for me, this type of humor really works for the film. I enjoyed the stupid comedic portions of the film.

I also really enjoyed the chemistry between Jason Segel and Emily Blunt here. They act like a real couple based on the situations they encounter. They also poke fun at each other when encountering humorous situations.

The Negatives:
For starters, I can easily say I did not care for a single character this entire film. I felt all of the characters were stupid and extremely self-centered. I wanted to like each character, but their flaws made them unredeemable. They could've further developed the characters to make them redeemable, but the writers choose not to for some reason. As a result, I could not care for any of the characters.

Also, the film tries to go through the realistic and dark route at times. While it is ambitious, I felt it was very unnecessary and not needed for this type of film. Earlier in my review, I praised the realistic chemistry between Blunt and Segel. A flaw this film has is the fact it focuses too much on them bickering, fighting and acting strange to themselves and other people. While this stuff is realistic, it made the film less entertaining for me and I felt they should have worked the comedy around the situations, rather than keeping them separate.

Another flaw this film has is that it feels 30 minutes too long. When the film feels like it is over, it creates a new situation and makes you feel bored. Comedies have a certain time limit, and when they get too long, it loses its touch. I wish the ending ended a little faster than it did.

Conclusion:
The Five-Year Engagement has great comedic moments, strong casting and wonderful chemistry between Jason Segel and Emily Blunt. However, it suffers from unlikeable characters, unnecessary dark subplots, and an overlong runtime. The film itself is okay, but this is easily the weakest effort from the writing team of Nicholas Stoller and Jason Segel.

Rating: 6 out of 10