"The Five Year Engagement" is a romantic comedy following Tom (Jason Segal) and Violet (Emily Blunt) who become engaged a year after they started dating. As they begin to plan their wedding, the couple face set backs that keep them extending the engagement and putting off the wedding. One major obstacle is that Violet's academic career has the couple move from San Francisco to Ann Arbor, Michigan. The move puts considerable strain on their relationship when Violet flourishes in her post-doctoral position and grows close to her boss (Rhys Ifans) while Tom is unhappy with his lack of career opportunities in Michigan.
As far as "romantic comedies" and "R-rated comedies" go, I have to give this film some credit. I thought Segal and Blunt had believable chemistry and did a good job with the material. There's clearly some unintentional awkward spots in the movie and what seems to be the expected raunchy material and adult language though it's minimal. The film seems to run a bit too long, which makes me wonder how it would've played without some of the awkward places in the writing. Overall though I liked that the film showed a couple going through normal problems and just as in real life these problems aren't solved easily. There's also some real great supporting acting in this film from Ifans along with Alison Brie.
While there's some uneven spots in the writing and it feels a little long, this movie is still pretty good especially for the "R-rated comedy" genre. B-
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