By Nick Stark
BRITISH romantic comedies have a very high standard to live up to. No matter how many years pass all entries in this particular field inevitably get compared to the exemplar of the genre, Four Weddings and A Funeral, and I Give It Year, which opened last Friday from Magnolia Pictures and director Dan Mazer, not surprisingly falls short.
In essence this film is about two Londoners who fall in love and quickly marry (seen through an opening credit montage) and then spend the rest of the movie realizing they are totally wrong for each other and figuring out how to get the hell out. Nat (Rose Byrne), is a hard-working, ambitious, neat-freak ad executive, while Josh (Rafe Spall) is a happy-go-lucky, slobby, stay at home writer still stuck in the adolescent man-child limbo that will be familiar to anyone who’s ever seen a Judd Apatow movie.
To add fire to the flames of a marriage about to combust is the appearance of Guy, (Simon Baker), a dishy industrialist who ardently pursues Nat, thinking she is single, and Chloe (Anna Faris), Josh’s old flame, with whom, Josh quickly realizes, he is still in love. The audience quickly figure out where this story is going; the only question is how they will get there.
The movie is frequently very funny, with a series of set pieces whose humor derives from that old-fashioned staple: British sexual embarrassment. Given that writer/director Mazer made his bones on the Ali G Show and later Borat, that should come as no surprise. Within moments of the opening credits at Josh and Nat’s wedding, we see best man Danny (Stephen Merchant) giving a toe-curlingly embarrassing speech. Merchant provides plenty of comic relief throughout, although just how awful he can be does strain credulity somewhat. There is also an achingly-funny interlude as Chloe experiments with a threesome, and an extended scene in a lingerie shop where Josh tries to buy something to spice up his failing love life. Several clever set-pieces which show just why Nat’s parents consider Josh a terrible match for their daughter also keep the yuks going, but in the end the film fails because of a simply lack of chemistry between the two leads. At no point do you ever believe that Nat and Josh would have got together for anything other than a one-night stand. To make matters worse, neither Spall nor Byrne really have the charisma to carry a romantic comedy.
In addition to Merchant and Faris, there is plenty of excellent support work from a strong cast, especially Minnie Driver as Nat’s embittered sister Naomi, stuck in an unhappy marriage to man she appears to loathe, Jane Asher as Nat’s silently fuming mother Diana, and Nigel Planer (yes, he of hippie Neil in TV’s The Young Ones), who plays Josh’s wrinkly but lecherous father.
There are plenty of worse movies out there. And at 97 minutes, I Give It A Year moves breezily to its conclusion. You’ll get plenty of laughs for your money. Just don’t expect any magic. I give it a…yeah…
I’ll Give It A Year, from Magnolia Pictures. Starring Rafe Spall, Rose Byrne, Simon Baker, Anna Faris and Stephen Merchant. Written and directed by Dan Mazer. Rated: PG-13. 97 mins
