Photo: Courtesy of Magnolia Pictures
We love a romantic comedy as much as the next gal (our well-worn copy of How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days can attest to that). But that formula of guy meets girl, guy falls in love with girl, guy and girl suffer relationship-testing conflict, guy runs through the rain to declare his everlasting love for girl — can become more than a little overdone. A feel-good movie always, well, feels good, but sometimes we're just looking for something a little more realistic, and that won't leave us wondering why our own love lives pale in comparison to the big screen.
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Of course, leave it to those sassy Brits to do just that. Dan Mazer (the writer behind Borat) and the producers of Love Actually teamed up to create the hilariously raunchy I Give It A Year. Sure, there's some running through the rain here, too, but it's not at all what we'd expect — and in this case, that's a beautiful thing. The film follows the type-A overachiever Nat (Rose Byrne) and laid-back writer Josh (Rafe Spall) through their disastrous first year of marriage. Not only did they rush to the altar after seven short months, but they struggle with everything from coordinating their daily schedules, to deciding who's going to empty the trash can (er, rubbish bin...this is a British movie, after all).
Expect plenty of off-kilter and mildly inappropriate jokes — including one particularly traumatizing scene involving Nat's parents, Honeymoon pictures, and a digital-photo frame gone awry — sprinkled with the heartbreaking realities of a deteriorating relationship. One of the movie's most surprisingly poignant moments comes when Josh wakes up on the couch the morning after deeply embarrassing Nat at her company Christmas party, simply for acting like his fun-loving self. We weren't expecting to get choked up at a raunchy Brit comedy, but Nat and Josh's hardships are strikingly similar to all of our own romantic problems. The moment when you suddenly realize you're terribly unhappy can be more tragic than the actual parting of ways and dividing up of possessions. [Alert! Minor spoilers ahead!]
Photo: Courtesy of Magnolia Pictures
The true twist for this flick comes at the end, when we're all expecting a tearful reunion filled with apologies and promises, and we're treated to something entirely different. At first, it's easy to walk away from this movie feeling bummed out because, let's face it, relationships that don't work (especially when they're marriages) are depressing. We all want to believe that every person out there will get the happily ever after — but, it is refreshing to face the hard truth that that's not always the case. And, even more so, we love that this flick has the balls, for lack of a better word, to show that breakups do happen, and can result in an, albeit fictionalized, state of harmony.
Of course, if you're the type of moviegoer that needs the tearful reunion and the romantic promises (there's no shame in that!), I Give It A Year will leave you disappointed. But you'll still have loads of laughs and be reminded that there's beauty in not taking yourself too seriously. And, of course, ain't nothing wrong with enjoying a few hours of raunchy humor with a few charming Brits. I Give It A Year hits theaters nationwide on August 9.