thoughts on The Five Year Engagement (spoilers)

1) Previews: I'm only going to talk about one, and that is That's My Boy, starring Adam Sandler and Andy Samberg, which I was first appalled by when I went to see American Reunion a few weeks back. The premise of this movie is that at age thirteen, Adam Sandler's character had sex with a teacher and got her pregnant. She went to jail, and he raised the son by himself. He did such a bad job that the kid left home at age eighteen and never spoke to him again, but now Adam Sandler owes money to the IRS and he hears his kid is now rich, so he looks him up. As he spends time with his now-grown son (Andy Samberg), we learn about all the mistakes he made as a father. Okay. First of all: why are they making a COMEDY about a thirteen-year-old sleeping with his teacher? Second, I'm pretty sure that the courts would not give custody of a baby to a thirteen-year-old kid, even if that kid was the baby's father. Third, even if they did, he would have to be the biggest jackass in the world to do some of the things that we learn that Adam Sandler did while raising this kid, such as letting him drive a car at age eight and get a large tattoo of New Kids on the Block on his back while he was in the third grade. "I was thirteen!" Adam Sandler defends himself in the preview. Um, he would have been in his early twenties by the time much of this stuff went down, and people in their early twenties have children LITERALLY EVERY DAY. Many of them do a perfectly good job. For that matter, thirteen-year-olds are sometimes left in charge of small children for short periods of time and manage to keep them safe and not let them do anything stupid. GOD. This looks like it may just be the worst movie ever made.

2) Okay, now that I've gotten that out of my system-- The Five Year Engagement. This movie is terrible, everyone, which was very disappointing, because I really like both Jason Segel and Emily Blunt. The premise of this movie is that San Francisco couple Tom and Violet (played by Segel and Blunt) get engaged, but then keep deciding to put off the wedding. Violet gets offered a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Michigan that is supposed to last only two years, but it keeps getting extended. Tom moves to Michigan with her; he's a promising chef who is offered a super sweet job just before he leaves San Francisco, but in Ann Arbor, he can only find a job making sandwiches at Zingerman's. Meanwhile, as Violet's job/their engagement stretches out longer and longer, Violet's sister, Suzie (Alison Brie) and Tom's best friend, Alex (Chris Pratt) meet, get married, and have two kids, and grandparent after grandparent dies.

Here's what's wrong with this movie: the characters don't really even try to solve their problems. Like, Tom applies for jobs at restaurants all over Ann Arbor when they first move there (some of which I've eaten at, by the way!), but can only come up with the job at Zingerman's. I can buy that this would happen at first...but wouldn't, if you were Tom, you keep applying? I know the economy's rough, and all, but you would think he would eventually be able to find a better job. He eventually, after their relationship disintegrates and he moves back to San Francisco, opens a food truck selling what are apparently awesome tacos; he couldn't have thought of that in all the years he lived in Michigan? Also, he is obviously MISERABLE the entire time they are in Michigan, and Violet doesn't seem to give a rat's ass. Like, I know firsthand that academic jobs are hard to come by and that you wouldn't just give up a sweet job at the University of Michigan with no back-up plan, but if your fiance was that miserable, then you would certainly be applyiing other places, or at the very least, not condescendingly telling him that he should be happy with his "cool job" at Zingerman's (which I hear is a very good place, by the way, but Tom is clearly capable of doing more than making sandwiches). And Tom seems to take all the blame for everything that goes wrong! Like, after they've broken up, they talk on the phone, and he asks her when she knew it was over. She acts like they broke up because he just randomly went crazy, and not because he was misterable and NEITHER OF THEM was trying to fix it, at all.

There is also the issue that many scenes that start off funny or cute last too long, to the point where I felt uncomfortable. For example: Alex sings a song in Spanish to Suzie at their wedding and is surprisingly good. This is entertaining for maybe thirty seconds. IT JUST KEEPS GOING ON AND ON. There is also a scene where Violet and Suzie are arguing, and Suzie's young daughter requests that Violet talk like Cookie Monster and Suzie talk like Elmo. Again: mildly amusing for a few lines. But this argument just KEEPS GOING ON with both of them talking in Muppet voices, and it's hard to understand what they're saying, and it gets really grating really fast.

Finally, I hate it when people in movies (or people in real life, for that matter) move from the big city to a smaller but pefectly nice town and act like they're in the total backwoods (this was my irritation with Young Adult, as well, though I liked that movie a lot better than this one). I visited Ann Arbor a number of times when I was living in Bowling Green, Ohio, and I thought it was great. Does it snow there? Of course. Would Tom have the same opportunities as a chef that he would have in San Francisco? Of course not. But there's not really a good reason that he would be as miserable there as he is, and the movie doesn't really give us one.

Really the only thing I liked about this movie was Alison Brie and Chris Pratt as Suzie and Alex. That is literally the only thing. Well, and I kind of liked that a lot of it took place in Ann Arbor. But that's pretty much it.