Movie Review: I GIVE IT A YEAR Is Not A Happy Movie
What is it about romantic comedies? I was thoroughly charmed by I Give It a Year's trailer. The cast is great across the board. I came to it with genuine high hopes. And yet by the time the film ended, I was desperate to walk away. This is not a romantic film. It's a repugnant and tiring melodrama which filters almost all its energy through negativity.
The central premise focuses on Rose Byrne and Rafe Spall as Nat and Josh, a newly married couple who should never have gotten married but are forcing themselves to stay married even though they strongly dislike each other and would rather be married to other, specific people.
That's an interesting gimmick for the romantic comedy genre, but it translates poorly as a narrative because it demands that each of our main characters take one of two actions in every scene: One either displays their most annoying, obnoxious traits in order to illustrate why the other character hates them, or they are trying to resist flirty moments with the lovers they actually want.
Both tactics risk alienating us from these characters. Spall plays a (super handsome) slob who has no class and frequently embarrasses himself by acting like a moron in public. Byrne is a no-nonsense, humorless professional who makes up her own versions of song lyrics when singing along with the radio. They are never allowed to be likable because the film defines them only by their faults. The flirty scenes are even worse. They supply the film with its only chance for charm and romance, but because they revolve around cheating, I Give It a Year's warm and fuzzy stuff feels more icky and dramatic than intended.
Meanwhile, the film offers Minnie Driver and Jason Flemyng as sage elders who can attest to the difficulties of marriage. Meaning, they hate each other as well (actually Driver's character clearly hates her husband, but we never see Flemyng retaliate, nor do we see him actually do anything to deserve such scorn). Driver even has a little speech about how hatred supplies their marriage's very foundation.
To properly enjoy I Give It a Year, viewers must root against Byrne and Spall's marriage, a tricky proposal that might have various levels of effectiveness for various viewers. Luckily, the film wrapped around this central issue is at times quite funny. Stephen Merchant plays a dorky pal who spends his entire role telling dirty jokes at awkward times and making everyone feel awful about themselves. Olivia Colman is great as a really awful marriage counselor with outrageous anger issues. Even with writer and director Dan Mazer's Borat credentials, I Give It a Year provides a surprisingly ribald film that plays at an exaggerated enough pitch to almost break into an act of parody.
But it is not parody, and it's not very fun either. I Give It a Year is filled with great performances that all play to the same tone, but while its efforts to add a new wrinkle to the romantic comedy genre are certainly admirable, it lacks charm enough to overcome its odd, almost anti-romantic central conceit.
