Three Strikes, Stoller's Out

The Five-Year Engagement

*½ out of ****

Directed by: Nicholas Stoller

Starring: Jason Segel, Emily Blunt, Rhys Ifans, Alison Brie and Chris Pratt

Running time: 124 minutes

The Five-Year Engagement is an interminable 124 minutes of mediocre jokes, clunky comedic timing and contrived story development. Poorly paced and insufferably bland, it feels like an actual five-year engagement by the time the credits flash.

Engagement is writer/director Nicholas Stoller’s third R-rated comedy, after Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Get Him to the Greek. It is also his third comedy misfire, and his lack of development as a writer-director is dumbfounding.

Stoller aims to illuminate a modern conflict concerning the collision course of married life and the career world. However, he does not maneuver through this dilemma very successfully.

The loving couple at the film’s center is Tom Solomon (Jason Segal) and Violet Barnes (Emily Blunt), both of whom can be described as sweet, kind and nice. Tom is a sous-chef at a fancy San Francisco restaurant, while Violet is a psychology PhD waiting for acceptance into a post-doctorate program.

Tom pops the question to Violet in the first scene, and from there, the film careens into a one-joke premise. When will these two lovable loons walk down the aisle? Pushing off nuptials isn’t much of a concept for a comedy, which is likely why the funny moments are rare.

The pacing freezes early on, when Violet is admitted to the University of Michigan and decides to move to the Great Lakes region with Tom. However, that means Tom must leave a job that gave him a remarkable salary and a stable future.

Segal, attuned to the woes of his character, signals to the audience that he is miserable for making this sacrifice. As his character suffers the doldrums, career-wise and relationship-wise, the audience can only await the inevitable confrontation.

However, instead of tightening the story by pushing the conflict forward to a breaking point, Stoller crowds the film with filler scenes that focus on the film’s supporting characters – played by a variety of ace comedy players from Kevin Hart to Mindy Kaling.

These moments do not advance the story or develop the lead characters, but revolve around jokes. The momentum stops. By the time big turning points finally arrive on screen, it is hard to feign much interest in the dilemmas and plights of the characters.

It doesn’t help that Tom and Violet are an impeccable duo, without many flaws except for their strangely irrational decision to keep pushing off their nuptials. Segal and Blunt play off each other terrifically, but their characters are too perfect.

The other problem with the characterization is that when the characters go through the old romantic comedy convention of distancing themselves from each other (which will enforce an eventual split), their motivations are false. Their characters behave in unexpected ways that don’t make sense based on what the audience already knows about the characters. That’s a grievous screenwriting sin.

To write and direct a comedy that feels inextricably modern, capably paced and funny, one cannot only rely on a stealthy ensemble. There must be conflict and tension within the characters that helps the story evolve organically and build momentum.

Nicholas Stoller has not mastered these elements. Until he learns how to pace action, plot conflict and build character, any engagement with his work should be delayed.