THE FIVE-YEAR ENGAGEMENT

Who made Segel a sex symbol? Why?

title: THE FIVE-YEAR ENGAGEMENT
year: 2012
cast: Jason Segel, Emily Blunt
rating: **

We’ve all seen the lucky everyman race car driver getting kissed by the beautiful model (way out of his league) at the finish line. Imagine that moment stretched two long hours and you have THE FIVE-YEAR ENGAGEMENT. Jason Segel’s oafish Tom conveys his usual passive glib character – this time as a successful San Francisco cook while his beautiful British girlfriend Violet, played by the willowy blue-eyed Emily Blunt, dreams of becoming involved in psychology research. They move to a snowy small town where his dreams diminish and her studies (which make absolutely no sense) begin. The upbeat trailer's somewhat misleading; while the engagement is in fact curtailed, this occurs only sporadically through an overabundance of quirky eccentric characters – from Tom’s blunt brother to Violet’s geeky classmates and her roguish professor who becomes one of many kinks in their breezy (as opposed to stormy) romance. When the couple spends time alone making love and pillow talk, both actors seem too safe and comfortable with each other, allowing little chemistry to develop or sparks to fly. And most of the obstacles that get in the way, which should have made Tom’s plight more involving given Segel’s ability as a sarcastic underdog, centers too much on family, friends, and other bizarre distractions that, for a movie promoted as a mainstream rom-com, should have been more accessible and a lot funnier.