Review of I Give It a Year (2013) by Trevor W — 19 Feb 2013

I am a sucker for a rom-com. I count Notting Hill amongst my all time favourite films, and when done well it can be a medium that has the ability to make you laugh and cry in equal measure. Usually, however, they are not done especially well, and we are served up half baked ideas strung together with a flimsy narrative for 90 minutes that ends up making you feel your life force ebbing away with every second that goes by. I Give it a Year doesn't fall totally into that category, but (oddly enough given the plot) it certainly heavily flirts with it.

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The premise it somewhat decent, and you have at its heart two likeable leads, and the scene where they meet did have me just about believing in their characters. Some of the story is well thought out, and I must admit there were a couple of nicely worked moments and some decent lines here and there, and I would be lying if I said it was an altogether gruelling or boring experience. However, once again this is an example of one of those types of films that I cannot stand, namely a lazy one. Writing a great comedy script is difficult, and making a story work and giving characters real emotion is a real challenge. Very few films can really say they have nailed the balance, but at least some try, even if they do fall short. This is a film that, sadly, cops out of going for it, and is instead very happy to have a bit of plot, then some sketches woven around the central idea, and then some more plot, and repeat. Characters come in, do a bit of shtick and then exit stage left, the best example being that of the utterly ridiculous Stephen Merchant character, who is basically there to bring some rather off-beat humour into parts of the film that the writers must have thought were lacking something. And so, we stagger from set piece to sketch and back again, and we go over some jokes we have seen done before (and better) in rom-coms of the past, and it meanders along with little or no fuss, and we all get the ending we saw coming from 5 minutes in. This isn't to say there is nothing to enjoy, but it is to say there is enough in there for you to justifiably take against it. The fact that I didn't wholly do that may be down to some fairly good performances all round, and my natural predisposition to this genre. However, if you want to, this is an easy film to dislike.

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I wouldn't be so harsh as to necessarily say "I give it a miss", but I will say "I give it a rather short shelf life, as we all realise just how good Four Weddings was and watch that instead". Perhaps not as catchy, but certainly true.