"I Give It A Year"

Ah, romcoms. Whether you love them or hate them, they keep getting made. The next one up is I Give It A Year, by the same people who made Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, and Love Actually.

A look at the trials and tribulations of a pair of newlyweds during their first year as a married couple.

I Give It A Year was written and directed by Dan Mazer, co-writer of Da Ali G Show, Borat, and Brüno. Mazer says his favourite film is When Harry Met Sally (so watch out for a charades scene in this one). When given the opportunity to write a romcom, Mazer rebelled at the established formula. 

Page 78 in fact: the act two/three turning point where they realise that actually they love each other. It's formulaic and, frankly, depressing too.

I Give It A Year begins at the point most romcoms end, where the couple say "I do". Mazer said:

So a lot of the stories in I Give It A Year are slightly exaggerated versions of true stories, things that have happened either to me or to friends of mine. The basic concept, for example, comes from the fact that at this point in my life I've been to roughly 100 weddings and I can tell whether the marriage is going to last or not. I can sit there in my cynical holier-than-thou way, look to my wife and make a call. I've got an excellent hit rate. I went to a wedding where the groom was trying to give a lovely speech about his wife and the best thing he could think of to say was "the thing I love about her the most is how difficult she finds it to find her mobile phone". That wasn't even a challenge. I think it lasted two months.

Here's the trailer.

     IMDb    The Guardian    Wikipedia