Nick Stoller previously directed Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Get Him to the Greek (both of which I thought were actually pretty funny), and now he’s back with his big chubby muse, Jason Segel, in The Five Year Engagement. Segel gets engaged to his lady, Emily Blunt (am I the only one who constantly gets her confused with Olivia Wilde**?), and through a wacky series of mishaps, their marriage gets delayed for, like, ever. The sassy sidekicks are Chris Pratt and Alison Brie, respectively. Frankly, I don’t know if that’s enough conflict. I feel like marrying your fiancee is a lot like graduating from college. You know you have to get it over with at some point, but there’s really no reason to hurry because the next stage of your life is just going to suck.
I like pretty much everyone involved in this, but it doesn’t bode well that more than half the jokes in the trailer involve someone falling down. By my count, there was:
- Jason Segel falling on a fire hydrant
- Jason Segel falling on ice
- Emily Blunt getting hit by a car
- Emily Blunt getting shot with an arrow.
It seems like that many pratfalls add up to a nutshot, which as we all know is the kiss of death.
Also, “So then the little girl says, ‘I’m Pocahontas!’ and shoots her in the leg with a crossbow!” sounds like something Gary Busey would suggest at a writer’s meeting.
[Blunt’s mom was Jacki Weaver, who was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for Animal Kingdom, which you should definitely see]
**A Wikipedia search led me to the shocking news that not only is Olivia Wilde not British (though she does have dual Irish-American citizenship), her real last name is Cockburn.