Lately, there has been a curious trend developing in American studio comedies as producers have been trying increasingly to achieve a kind of everyman realism, albeit with photogenic celebrity lead actors and only the most marketable of central social themes. I Don't Know How She Does It ironically made audiences question the plausibility of a forty- something-year-old overworked mother could be as attractive as Sarah Jessica Parker, and manage to find a fifty-something businessman as attractive as Pierce Brosnan to be her love interest, more than it made us marvel at the way she copes with a hectic home and work life. This is 40 hardly has anything on display about the realities of middle age that is not already well known.
A film titled I Give it a Year would seemingly be another flick from this same production line about the third world problems experienced by a mostly happily married couple, but its trailer showed it to be a brilliant British ensemble comedy with a hilarious host of supporting characters who are prime participants and comical spectators of the disintegrating marriage between languid husband Josh (Rafe Spall) and plucky but uptight wife Nat (Rose Byrne). It was a premise that also carried a promising cynical appeal with its anti-rom-com focus on a gradual breakup rather than a hook-up.
So does it deliver, or are all the best lines and novel ideas used up by the trailer? Well, it doesn't exactly break the mould of the tired genre. It's true that our two non-compatible romantic leads are bitterly falling out of love with each another, but this is largely because they are falling in love with their respective American-born acquaintances: suave, handsome travelling businessman Guy (Simon Baker) and Josh's sweet ex-girlfriend Chloe (Anna Faris). To this double-date romantic crossover comedy, the two Americans seem to have brought a packed suitcase full of sappy, coy, fairy-tale clichés, but thankfully most of these are offset or spiced up by the inspired, zany, zappy British humour of writer/director Dan Mazer (Borat, Brüno) who conversely has his vulgar extremities healthily moderated by the sterile Hollywood influences.
However, the trademark humour of Sacha Baron Cohen and his other collaborators does come through on several deliciously memorable occasions in pleasingly small doses. Mazer particularly enjoys writing cringe-inducing dialogue for Stephen Merchant, a comedian naturally inclined to unwittingly say wildly inappropriate things at the most unfortunate of times. Merchant delivers every one of his golden, ingeniously awkward lines with terrific repulsive charm. It's true that a lot of these are in the trailer, which gives the misleading impression that Merchant's character of Josh's most insufferable friend, features much more than he actually does, but given more time on screen he may well have become as tiresome as Cohen's obnoxiously repugnant character creations.
Still, every character has at least one gorgeously revolting comedic moment or two to shine, even our contractually generic romantic interests, and while some may complain about the portion sizes of the Merchant magic, we certainly get our fill the other good supporting characters. Minnie Driver and Jason Flemyng are very entertaining as a couple who are bizarrely content with their discontentment with each other. Driver infuses the familiar snide unromantic witticisms she's given with a great, fresh energy, and Flemyng bring his usual charm to the role of the apathetic, good-for-nothing husband. Olivia Colman relishes her role as a cantankerous marriage counsellor who doesn't exactly lead a good example in her own marriage.
However, veteran actors Jane Asher and Nigel Planer are barely given much to relish as Nat's parents, who spend most of the time giving fairly standard and uninteresting reactions to the much more exciting and inventive comedic happenings on the opposite end of the frame. Some audience members will likely be disappointed by this, we can't always watch our favourite actors in the juiciest roles.
We should be grateful that Mazer has mixed together the crude humour of unwatchable shock-fest comedies with the nauseating sentimentality of unwatchable factory-made chick flicks to make something that is very watchable, and enjoyable, even if it has a strange love/hate relationship with the latter type of film. While not quite anti-rom-com, I applaud it for keeping both the jokes and the romance running alongside each other, rather suddenly abandoning all humour at the halfway mark and forcing an indigestible dramatic tone on its farcical narrative. This is actually a true romantic comedy, a fact that smacks of the same irony that much of the dialogue does. It's definitely one of the better pieces of light entertainment out there, even if it's no comedic masterpiece.
A film titled I Give it a Year would seemingly be another flick from this same production line about the third world problems experienced by a mostly happily married couple, but its trailer showed it to be a brilliant British ensemble comedy with a hilarious host of supporting characters who are prime participants and comical spectators of the disintegrating marriage between languid husband Josh (Rafe Spall) and plucky but uptight wife Nat (Rose Byrne). It was a premise that also carried a promising cynical appeal with its anti-rom-com focus on a gradual breakup rather than a hook-up.
So does it deliver, or are all the best lines and novel ideas used up by the trailer? Well, it doesn't exactly break the mould of the tired genre. It's true that our two non-compatible romantic leads are bitterly falling out of love with each another, but this is largely because they are falling in love with their respective American-born acquaintances: suave, handsome travelling businessman Guy (Simon Baker) and Josh's sweet ex-girlfriend Chloe (Anna Faris). To this double-date romantic crossover comedy, the two Americans seem to have brought a packed suitcase full of sappy, coy, fairy-tale clichés, but thankfully most of these are offset or spiced up by the inspired, zany, zappy British humour of writer/director Dan Mazer (Borat, Brüno) who conversely has his vulgar extremities healthily moderated by the sterile Hollywood influences.
However, the trademark humour of Sacha Baron Cohen and his other collaborators does come through on several deliciously memorable occasions in pleasingly small doses. Mazer particularly enjoys writing cringe-inducing dialogue for Stephen Merchant, a comedian naturally inclined to unwittingly say wildly inappropriate things at the most unfortunate of times. Merchant delivers every one of his golden, ingeniously awkward lines with terrific repulsive charm. It's true that a lot of these are in the trailer, which gives the misleading impression that Merchant's character of Josh's most insufferable friend, features much more than he actually does, but given more time on screen he may well have become as tiresome as Cohen's obnoxiously repugnant character creations.
Still, every character has at least one gorgeously revolting comedic moment or two to shine, even our contractually generic romantic interests, and while some may complain about the portion sizes of the Merchant magic, we certainly get our fill the other good supporting characters. Minnie Driver and Jason Flemyng are very entertaining as a couple who are bizarrely content with their discontentment with each other. Driver infuses the familiar snide unromantic witticisms she's given with a great, fresh energy, and Flemyng bring his usual charm to the role of the apathetic, good-for-nothing husband. Olivia Colman relishes her role as a cantankerous marriage counsellor who doesn't exactly lead a good example in her own marriage.
However, veteran actors Jane Asher and Nigel Planer are barely given much to relish as Nat's parents, who spend most of the time giving fairly standard and uninteresting reactions to the much more exciting and inventive comedic happenings on the opposite end of the frame. Some audience members will likely be disappointed by this, we can't always watch our favourite actors in the juiciest roles.
We should be grateful that Mazer has mixed together the crude humour of unwatchable shock-fest comedies with the nauseating sentimentality of unwatchable factory-made chick flicks to make something that is very watchable, and enjoyable, even if it has a strange love/hate relationship with the latter type of film. While not quite anti-rom-com, I applaud it for keeping both the jokes and the romance running alongside each other, rather suddenly abandoning all humour at the halfway mark and forcing an indigestible dramatic tone on its farcical narrative. This is actually a true romantic comedy, a fact that smacks of the same irony that much of the dialogue does. It's definitely one of the better pieces of light entertainment out there, even if it's no comedic masterpiece.