I Give It A Year: Movie Review

I Give It A Year: Movie Review

Cast: Rose Byrne, Rafe Spall, Simon Baker, Anna Faris, Stephen Merchant, Minnie Driver and Jason Flemyng
Director: Dan Mazer

Here we go - the blurb says it all.

From the producers of Love Actually, Notting Hill and Bridget Jones' Diary, comes a new Brit rom com aimed at stepping up where Hugh Grant has gone AWOL.

Byrne and Spall are Nat and Josh, a mismatched couple who, after a whirlwind courtship, get married - and are just trying to get through the first year. That's despite their best friends thinking it won't last that long.

Things get tough for Nat, when a sexy client Guy (The Mentalist's Simon Baker) comes in to her life. Worried about the potential of losing the account, she slips off the wedding ring and starts a flirtation...

And it's not much easier for Josh, whose ex (Anna Faris) is still in the picture - and who is clearly meant for Josh...

I Give It A Year deserves some praise for playing with some of the traditional rom-com tropes.

But it also deserves a degree of indifference for giving us two leads who we're never exactly rooting for. Byrne and Spall can barely stand each other on screen, so it makes it difficult to really care whether their marriage should work or not. In fairness, though, this is not their fault - merely the writing which doesn't endear the pair to an audience right away. Baker oozes charm as the temptation (and is actually a well written, well rounded nice guy as opposed to a sleaze) and Faris seems a bit too drippy as a hippy ex from Josh's past to really give the romantic sizzle it needs.

Throw in the usual British collection of oddballs and misfits, who only seem to surface in crowd-pleasing rom coms and you've got the lot. Want an inappropriate best friend/ best man? Step forward, Stephen Merchant to roll out yet another slight take on his character he's been perfecting for years. Want an angry counsellor, who's clearly in need of psychiatric help? Roll out Peep Show's Olivia Coleman to fulfill those requirements.

Wisely though, Ali G's Mazer has some idea of what works and keeps the whole thing moving briskly along and with a degree of directorial panache.

In fact, while I Give It A Year has some good solid moments of laugh out loud mirth as degrees of farce are churned into the mix, it's nowhere near as clever as it wants and aspires to be; funny one liners here and there, and situations which are recognisable rather than cliched and repugnant, the UK rom-com crowd pleasing fans will lap it up. Others may find parts of it a little tiresome and unoriginal.

Rating: