Title: I Give It a Year
Magnolia Pictures
Director: Dan Mazer
Screenwriter: Dan Mazer
Cast: Rose Byrne, Rafe Spall, Anna Faris, Simon Baker, Stephen Merchant, Minnie Driver
Screened at: Review 1, NYC, 7/18/13
Opens: August 9, 2013
In the wedding scene that opens this com-rom (more a comedy than a romantic story), the minister goes into a two-minute coughing fit just before he pronounces the couple husband and wife. This is a sure indication that this marriage is not going to last notwithstanding the happiness that both Nat (Rose Byrne) and Josh (Rafe Spall) exude. When the bride’s sister Naomi (Minnie Driver) tells her husband Hugh (Jason Flemyng) that “I give it a year,” that should seal the couple’s fate. Of course the folks who honeymoon in Venice—he, a writer, who considers himself a thinker, and she a marketing manager whom he considers a doer—will have serious problems during their first year and, in the usual formulaic style will get together by the concluding scene.
But wait! They don’t get together? This is one of the aspects of “I Give It a Year” that make writer-director Dan Mazer’s movie different from the usual run-of-the-mill pictures about the conflict between honeymoon bliss and the realities of wedlock. In fact not only does the principal couple glory in zingers, as you’d expect from the scripter of offbeat pics like “Borat” and “Brüno,” but the side personalities go them even better with one laugh-producing moment after another.
“I Give It a Year” falls within the happy tradition of salty comedies like “Bridesmaids,” loaded with deliberately embarrassing puns and, in particular, one acrobatic scene involving Chloe (Anna Faris), Josh’s former girlfriend, in a threesome. Given Nat’s growing attraction to the hunky Guy (Simon Baker) and Rafe’s continued feelings for Chloe, this is not a marriage made in heaven.
As if the always amusing Anna Faris and the boy in an adult’s skin played by Rafe Spall were not enough to make “I Give It a Year” a gem, the really big laughs come from a lawyer who scares the hell out of the newlyweds by asking whether they would want the plug pulled if they were in a vegetative state, and a marriage counselor who needs lots of therapy herself. But no others can match the lines scripted for Dan (Stephen Merchant), giving the obligatory comic speech required of the best man. His embarrassing but hilarious commentary about the bride and groom, followed up by his witty chit-chat at small party gatherings, are a delight.
There are so many natural comedians in this case—and by the way, Rose Byrne has shown herself to be quite adept in that area—that Simon Baker’s character stands out as the only straight man in the crew, the fish out of water. Some scenes could probably be done without, principally the prolonged, acrobatic threesome involving Chloe, who gets repeatedly pushed out of the bed by the woman who is working on the gent. And why is the man wearing underpants throughout? This is a comedy based more on words than on physical action, a winning treat all around. “I Give It a Year” was filmed in London and Ealing Studios with a British cast save for Anna Faris and Simon Baker.
Rated R. 97 minutes © 2013 by Harvey Karten, Member, New York Film Critics Online
Story – B+
Acting – A-
Technical – B
Overall – B+
