6.1 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Nine months after the wedding that all their friends thought wasn't such a great idea, Nat and Josh are beginning to wonder whether the naysayers were right after all. As they both agree to try and make a go of it, neither wanting to admit defeat, Nat begins to fall for the charms of Guy, one of her clients, while Josh realizes that he still has feelings for his ex, Chloe.
Starring: Rose Byrne, Anna Faris, Rafe Spall, Simon Baker, Minnie DriverComedy | 100% |
Romance | 9% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English SDH, Spanish
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
BD-Live
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 4.5 | |
Video | 5.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 3.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
A romantic comedy from a writer and producer of Borat, Brüno and Da Ali G Show? Sounds about as likely as a sensitive coming-of-age tale from the makers of Saw. But here it is, writer Dan Mazer's directorial debut about what happens after the curtain comes down on happily ever after and the blissful couple prepares to leave the altar. As they exchange their vows, the bride's bitchy sister mutters, "I give it a year!" Mazer has given the stale rom-com a kick in the rear by focusing on a couple that clearly, from the very outset, does not belong together. They're both good people, but they're mismatched. Where the usual formula has the audience yearning for the lovers to overcome all obstacles so that they can eventually fall into each other's arms, Mazer has arranged matters so that you spend most of his film praying that they'll take their marriage counselor's advice and just split up already. Drawing on the credibility of his work with Sacha Baron Cohen, Mazer attracted the backing of Working Title Films, which has been a comedy powerhouse for almost two decades, producing everything from Four Weddings and a Funeral to The Big Lebowski to Hot Fuzz and The World's End. The hilarity of the script attracted a sterling cast, including Stephen Merchant, the towering (literally) co-creator of The Office and Extras, whose voice Mazer had specifically imagined when he created the character of the groom's tactless best man, who gives a nightmare wedding toast and then periodically reappears to say something cringeworthy. Merchant enlivened production by doing his best to make everyone else crack up and ruin their takes, because, as he says in an interview in the extras, why not have fun while making a comedy? The same anarchic spirit is evident throughout I Give It a Year, which is edgier and more explicit than most British comedies—a result many of the film's participants attribute to the influence of Judd Apatow, though I doubt even Apatow would have imagined the humiliating threesome that Mazer gleefully stages.
I Give It a Year was shot on the Arri Alexa by Ben Davis, whose impressive credits include Layer Cake, Kick-Ass and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. Whether through on-set lighting or digital post-production, Davis has married (if you'll forgive the term) the Alexa's noted ability to capture a film-like image with the advantages of digital acquisition to recreate the delicate textures and hues of a traditional romantic film within a realistic contemporary setting, all of which makes the eruption of comic mayhem that much funnier. Magnolia Home Entertainment's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray was presumably sourced from digital files, because the image has retained all the sharpness, clarity and detail that one expects from a digitally originated production. The blacks in key night scenes are suitably dark, and the colors in the many and varied locales, including clubs, restaurants and the floor of Simon's factory, are distinctive and appropriately saturated. The detail is so good that one can make out lots of prurient detail in Nat's and Josh's honeymoon photos when they show up at an inopportune moment. ("That's doggy style", Josh adds helpfully, not that the viewer needs any explanation.) Magnolia is consistently reliable in not aiming for the tightest possible compression, even with digitally originated material that would probably compress with less risk of artifacts. The average bitrate of 29.28 Mbps is generous for this non-action movie. Other studios could take a lesson (not that I would Image-ine myself Warner-ing anyone in particular).
The film's original 5.1 soundtrack is presented in lossless DTS-HD MA. Like many comedies, I Give It a Year has a front-oriented mix with the emphasis on dialogue, although there are various scenes where the environmental ambiance helps establish the mood (e.g., the wedding, an official function where Josh accompanies Nat, Nat's tour of Guy's factory and various restaurant scenes). Every so often director Mazer will add an extra wallop to a specific sound for comic effect; an example occurs during Guy's first meeting with Nat when he pounds on the table, and Guy's ill-fated effort to impress Nat with a romantic display has many such sounds, most of them indescribable. The alternately sweet and frenetic score is by the versatile Ilan Eshkeri, also a veteran of Layer Cake and Kick-Ass, as well as Ralph Fiennes' exceptional filmed adaptation of Coriolanus.
In their interviews, some of the cast and the film's producer—but not Mazer himself—make fairly extravagant claims for the likely influence of I Give It a Year on future rom-coms and British comedy in general. It's hubris to predict such things, but Mazer has made the funniest film I've seen about marriage in years, because it's steeped in a genuine understanding of the subject. (He insists that his own is happy.) No new film has made me laugh this hard or this often since Knocked Up, perhaps because Mazer writes equally well for both male and female characters, and they both get as many laughs. Magnolia has assembled a first-rate Blu-ray with a good selection of extras. Highly recommended.
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