Review: I Give It A Year (15)

Having rushed into marriage Nat and Josh (Rose Byrne and Rafe Spall) find themselves wondering whether there might be more to life just a few short months later.
By Tony Earnshaw
Published 8th Feb 2013, 10:33 BST

Cue a series of episodes in which these mismatched lovebirds ricochet from one friend’s advice to another, from one flirty moment to another, from one hoped-for solution to another. Written and directed by Dan Mazer, the man behind Borat, I Give it a Year is intermittently (very) funny but should be a great deal funnier than it actually is. The laughs come courtesy of the wider ensemble, via Olivia Colman’s marriage counsellor, who is immersed in her own private marital apocalypse.

That fragmented approach becomes the film’s downfall. It is a movie of two halves with the first 40-odd minutes faring better than the rest.

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Stephen Merchant’s appearance as a dreadful best man presenting the world’s worst wedding speech hints at his limitations as an actor, while Minnie Driver appears born to play an embittered wife.

Mazer embraces familiar clichés like the helpful pal who insists on dividing upthe bill at the end of a meal but also throws in Borat-style humour. It’s juvenile, it’s facile, it’s puerile.