REVIEW: Ambitious Five-Year Engagement Explores the Confusion of Couplehood in Grown-Up Ways
The Five-Year Engagement begins where a lot of movies would end, with a proposal. Tom (Jason Segel), a chef, is driving to a New Year's Eve party with his girlfriend of a year, Violet (Emily Blunt), a psychology postdoc. He's so visibly nervous that she's worried he's unwell, questioning him until he pulls over to the side of the road, slams down a box containing a ring and confesses that he was going to ask her to marry him that night. He still does, and she still insists on going through with his plan of a surprise rooftop romantic dinner at the restaurant in which he works. That's because Tom and Violet are in love, and they're also nice, down-to-earth, well-intentioned people, qualities that suffuse the film as well, generally for the better but sometimes to its detriment.
more »
