I Give It A Year
Review by Anthony Morris
Occasionally along comes a film where the distance between what they were trying to do and what they achieved is just that little bit greater than usual.
It’s not that hard to see that with I Give It a Year the hope was to somehow combine everyone’s favourite brand of UK romcom with the broad strain of relationship comedy currently coming out of the US – a cross between Four Weddings and a Funeral and Bridesmaids, lets say.
But if any publicist were to take the line “a cross between Four Weddings and a Funeral and Bridesmaids” and slap it on the poster they’d be up for a false advertising lawsuit so big they’d never see the light of day again under the paperwork because what this film turns out to be is a near-aimless string of pointless set-pieces in which the broadest comedy principles possible are smeared across the screen in the clearly deluded assumption that someone somewhere will get a laugh out of it.
The story probably seemed like it had potential once upon a time: after a whirlwind romance freewheeling writer Josh (Rafe Spall) and uptight publicity whiz Nat (Rose Byrne) got married.
Hey, embarrassing best man speeches are funny – why not get Stephen Merchant to make the most embarrassing speech ever! Well, because it makes him look like he’s mentally ill and some kind of sex criminal for starters.
Cut to (almost) a year later and the bloom is off the rose.
Will Nat fall for her hunky new client (Simon Baker)? Will Josh fall back into the arms of his scruffy ex Chole (Ana Faris)? Will you care because no-one in this film acts remotely like a human being, instead being compromised entirely of one-dimensional comedy tics that rapidly shift from “slightly amusing” to “intensely annoying” long before the halfway mark?
There’s nothing going on here that is remotely worth your attention; even fans of the bluntest forms of comedy are best advised to give this a wide berth.
2.5 out of 5
I Give It A Year
Australian release: 28th February, 2013
Official Site: I Give It A Year
Cast: Anna Faris, Rose Byrne, Simon Baker, Jason Flemyng, Minnie Driver, Rafe Spall
Director: Dan Mazer
