I Give It A Year

I GIVE IT A YEAR

Director : Dan Mazer

Year : 2013

Genre : Comedy

Rating : *1/2

Calling itself the 'anti' romantic comedy, 'I Give It A Year' is a very lifeless and somewhat pernicious British film from director Dan Mazer. Starring Rose Byrne, Rafe Spall, Anna Faris, Stephen Merchant and Simon Baker, the movie focuses on the relationship between a newly married couple and the trials and tribulations they face over the course of a year. While this general synopsis may seem to serve as an umbrella for many recent rom - com's, 'I Give It A Year' has the unique selling point of being one of the only movies where extra marital relationships are a cause for celebration and divorce is shown to be the only way to be truly happy. Mazer himself is best known for writing the scripts for many of Sacha Baron Cohen projects and watching 'Borat' or 'Bruno', it is clear that he knows how to write funny and engaging dialogue. However in the case of 'I Give It A Year', the screenplay is turgid, the characters are barely developed and the various narrative strings are as jumbled and as confusing as the lives of the people portrayed on screen. Thanks to Richard Curtis, Britain is known as the home of the romantic comedy subgenre; thanks to the rottenness of 'I Give It A Year', we may now have lost that prestigious title. 

Rose Byrne and Rafe Spall play Nat and Josh; a young couple who marry after a whirlwind relationship. However after getting hitched, the pair realize that they may not have much in common as they were originally led to believe. Can the couple overcome their differences and their problems or will their marriage crumble after just a year of matrimony?

'I Give It A Year' is the directorial debut for Dan Mazer and while some of the scenes act quite nicely as singular polemic tomes on marriage, the choppy editing and poor screenplay make for a very clumsy and disorganized mess. Doing it's best to counteract every single romantic comedy convention, the picture tries to hard to be both biting and satirical while still maintaining a sense of laughter or realism and sadly, the two fail to work together in any way. Going from embarrassingly poignant and somewhat harsh but realistic moments to scenes of farcical and rather perfunctory slapstick, 'I Give It A Year' quickly loses a sense of focus and direction, leading us to lose interest in both the story and the characters.

I like many of the actors in the film but once again, the dreary screenplay and poorly developed characters do very little to hold our attention. Rose Bryne and Rafe Spall are totally unconvincing as a couple and their chemistry is almost non - existent. Anna Faris only serves as the secondary romantic interest and provides no comedy or narrative development whatsoever and Simon Baker is the rich and uncharismatic American who sweeps women off their feet with the help of a bulging wallet and about as much charm as a bag of potatoes. Even giant British comedy stars such as the always brilliant Olivia Colman and the hilarious Stephen Merchant are lost in a sea of meaningless conversations and overegged subtext.

I can see what 'I Give It A Year' was trying to do and maybe in the hands of a more experienced director, this idea of an 'anti' romance could have been both funny and thought provoking. I am sure it won't be too long before we see another comedy of this sort and the difficulties and joys of marriage will be perfectly realised on screen by a more accomplished and single minded filmmaker. Alas, not this time.