I Give It a Year (2013) starring Rose Byrne, Rafe Spall, Simon Baker, Stephen Merchant, Anna Faris directed by Dan Mazer Movie Review

I Give It a Year (2013)   2/52/52/52/52/5


Rafe Spall and Rose Byrne in I Give It a Year (2013)

I Gave it a Try

Just 7 months after they met Josh (Rafe Spall) and Nat (Rose Byrne) were at their own wedding and having to deal with the inappropriate speech of best man Danny (Stephen Merchant), a poorly thought out novelty dance and much more including the advice of Brian (Nigel Planer) who tells them that the first year is the hardest. 9 months later and they find themselves paying Linda (Olivia Colman), a marriage counsellor, a visit and it is clear that they are very different and their marriage is not working.

Oh look another romantic comedy about a couple who rush in to getting married and realise they are not compatible as they have very different attitudes with Josh being laid back whilst Nat is hard working. But wait as whilst that sounds like half a dozen other romantic comedies this one is different because of Dan Mazer who wrote and directed "I Give It a Year". Here is a little tip for you, if you like the look of a movie because you recognize the cast just have a quick look at what the director and writer has done before as you might realise it won't be for you.

Stephen Merchant and Anna Faris in I Give It a Year (2013)

So I mentioned Dan Mazer and when you take a peak at his previous work you will see he has written for Sacha Baron Cohen's movies and there is plenty of that style of humour which like marmite you either lover or hate. For me I am in the hate group and find jokes such as Minnie Driver calling Jason Flemyng a bell-end.co.uk or at least her character saying that not that funny. The same with Stephen Merchant as Danny giving the most inappropriate of best-men speeches not being funny at all. I could go on as some of the jokes are just plainly weird including one with a reference to being sexually attacked as a way of seeing another man's penis after marriage.

The thing is that "I Give It a Year" has a really impressive cast with many familiar faces but every single character says such weird stuff that they are all strange caricatures. Even Rafe Spall as Josh and Rose Byrne as Nat are caricatures and whether it was acting or not the look on Bryne's face during the wedding scenes seemed to scream out "what and I doing here". It is why I dropped that tip earlier because if you watched "I Give It a Year" purely because you are a fan of one of the actors there is a big chance you might end up put off of them.

What this all boils down to is that "I Give It a Year" is another romantic comedy where I began to question what is comedy. I am sure there are those who will love Mazer's quirky romantic comedy but for me it was definitely not up my street with not a single character having anything close to warmth to make me interested.


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