The Five-Year Engagement

This is the second film this year from Nicholas Stoller and Jason Segel. Hot on the heels of their Muppets collaboration comes this 'lengthy' love story starring Segel and Emily Blunt.
I'm a big fan of Forgetting Sarah Marshall(Stoller and Segels first collaboration) and found The Muppets to be hugely entertaining. The Five-Year Engagement is funny and honest, but doesn't quite live up to the success of their previous efforts.
Tom(Segel) and Violet(Blunt) meet at a fancy dress party on New Years Eve. A year to the day, Tom proposes to Violet. Unfortunately circumstances prevent the couple from being married immediately - and so they engage on their five-year odyssey!
Violet receives a dream job offer from Michigan University, which calls for the pair to move from their home in San Francisco - and for Tom to quit his prestigious sous-chef job.
The University offers Violet a two year contract initially, but she is soon offered an extension. It's too good an opportunity for Violet to pass up, however Tom is struggling to find a job to match his previous position, or even one which would require his particular skill-set.
Tom regresses to a Neanderthal-like state, while Violet catches the attention of her new boss. To make matters worse, grandparents are dying left and right - and Violets sister has beaten them to the punch with both a wedding and a pregnancy!
The Five-Year Engagement is quite a long film and one could argue that it needs to be. Interestingly the flow of time is integral to the plot - yet I couldn't help but feel the running time could have been trimmed a little. As a lite comedic affair the film was in danger of losing it's charm - like going to McDonald's and being served a four-course meal. Not that McDonald's has any particular charm(bad example)!
The Five-Year Engagement has some interesting things to say about relationships also, particularly their tumultuous nature  - resulting in Segel ans Stollers most mature offering to date.
At the University, Violet is part of a team studying psychology. The film cleverly duplicates that which is studied in the classroom. With differing results, the over-all realisation is that life doesn't adhere to academic formula. Playful flashbacks to Violet and Toms first meeting are a nice touch too and remind us all why we get into these things in the first place.
The supporting cast are great with Chris Pratt and Alison Brie the stand-outs. Alison Brie is particularly good in the role of Violets sister, Suzie. Her British accent is superb and one particular scene she shares with Emily Blunt will have you giggling incessantly!
The Five-Year Engagement is a fun and entertaining affair, which will resonate particularly with anyone who's ever been engaged or wed - 3/5.