With June half way through we are well into wedding season with its flurry of fancy attire, gatherings of friends and family, and an amount of forced camaraderie that can lead to all kinds of embarrassing moments. One of the trickier aspects of the wedding celebration is often the speeches dolled out during the reception. When they go well, everyone's hearts swell with love and joy for the happy couple, tears flow like the free champagne, and all is right with the world! But when they go wrong…well, there are few social faux pas as insanely awkward as a Best Man speech gone off the rails. So what better way to start a trailer for a comedy about a marriage threatening to crash and burn?
I Give It A Year is the bittersweet brainchild of writer-director Dan Mazer, making his feature directorial debut after years of writing for thought-provoking and outlandish comedian Sacha Baron Cohen on Da Ali G Show and Borat. As you might expect with a résumé like that, the Brit wit has managed to wrangle a spectacular ensemble of talent for his debut feature, including Rose Byrne, Rafe Spall, Stephen Merchant, Minnie Driver, Jason Flemyng, Jane Asher, Anna Faris, Simon Baker, and Olivia Colman.
Byrne, who proved her comedic chops in Get Him to the Greek and Bridesmaids, stars along with Spall (Life of Pi) as Nat and Josh, a couple who rushed into a wedding after only seven months. The trailer—which you can see in hi-def at Apple—reveals the movie will show a bit of their mucked up nuptials, then speed ahead into their failed newlywed period, in which the two have failed to gel click.
Should they cut their losses—as advised by a pretty direct couples therapist played by Peep Show's Colman—or should they forge ahead with this unhappy union to prove everyone who doubted them wrong? Making it even harder to make it work are their in-laws (Driver and Flemyng) whose marriage is just an angry tangle of disappointments and recrimination, and the emergence of temptation in the form of his old flame (a red-headed Faris) and her dashing new work flirt (Baker). Can these newlyweds work this out? Or maybe more importantly, should they even bother?
You can get a few additional peeks into the comedy and calamity of I Give It A Year by checking out the trailer below that teased the film's theatrical release in the UK earlier this year. Along with some jabs from the marriage counselor with an ax to grind, there's also a few more cringe-inducing jokes from Merchant as the worst best man imaginable!
Magnolia Pictures will release I Give It Year on iTunes and VOD on July 3rd. A limited theatrical release will follow Stateside on August 9th.
