I saw Five-Year Engagement last night. We recently saw Emily Blunt in Salmon Fishing in the Yemen and were re-watching Freaks and Geeks with Jason Segel, so it seemed like a good choice for a rainy Sunday evening. Spoiler alert in the rest of the blog.
Premise
The premise is that Violet (Emily Blunt) and Tom (Jason Segel) keep postponing their marriage because of one thing after another, but they end up getting married after a five-year engagement.
Synopsis
Violet and Tom meet on New Year’s Eve and one year later are engaged. Violet aspires to be a college professor and Jason a chef. Jason is a sou-chef at a San Francisco restaurant when Violet is offered a two year post-doc at University of Michigan. He says he will follow her. He turns down a head-chef position at a new restaurant in San Francisco and takes a job at a local deli in Ann Arbor. Tom is unhappy, but assumes it is only a 2 year stint. Then Violet gets an extension on her postdoc with a potential assistant professorship down the road. Along with indiscretions with other people, their relationship becomes strained and Tom returns to San Francisco and Violet stays in Michigan. They eventually get back together to the delight of family and friends and finally get married.
Too Long
As we left the theater, I was certain the movie was 2 ½ hours long and that about an hour could have been cut. I was surprised to find out later that it was only 2 hours long! I think it felt so long because it was so wrong.
So Wrong
There were so many things wrong with how the movie portrayed two-career couples, academics, and science. For instance,
• Violet applies for a postdoc in another part of the country without discussing it in advance with Tom.
In past decades men made career plans without discussing them with their families who were then expected to adapt their plans, but a two-career couple in 2012? Violet and Tom had aspirations, but apparently never discussed the particulars with each other. Violet applied for a post-doc at the University of Michigan without discussing what it would mean for her, for Tom, and for their relationship. She waited to bring it up with him after she got the post-doc. Two-career couples talk about their career paths in advance and work together to lay the groundwork for both to have successful careers.
• Violet receives notice of her postdoc via snail mail in a large envelope with the University of Michigan logo. No phone interview? No on-campus interview? No email exchange? Nothing until the acceptance letter shows up? In 2012, email and other electronic communications are commonly used for communicating with people about a position and alerting people to academic awards. It is highly unlikely that anyone, anywhere gets a postdoc without screening, conversation, and email exchanges.
• In another scene, Violet stands patiently while her supervising professor reads an article (at least 25 pages) she had written! What academic has the time to stand while someone else is reading your work? Who has the time to read an entire article while the author waits for your remarks? This is NOT how effective academics seek or receive feedback. Drafts are sent in email attachments. Unless you are part of a face-to-face writing group, then most likely a person receives feedback via email. Even if a person dropped off a hard copy draft (in 2012?), an effective academic would not stand around while someone else read their draft.
• Without any agreed upon procedures or practice, Violet improvises her instructions to the subjects of the experiment. Further, she states the results of her research in absolutes and makes broad generalizations. Given that the principal investigator and his three doctoral students (including Violet) are all present to observe an experiment, it is hard to believe that they would (1) expend all these people resources by all being present and (2) would wait until the last minute to decide who is going to introduce the experiment to the subjects and not have an agreed-upon script. When Violet mentions the results, she states absolutes without qualifications or nuance. Her absolute statements about her data become one of the reasons she steps back from her relationship with Tom. So not only does she speak in absolutes, but also incorrectly generalizes from a group response to Tom. In experimental research, procedures are carefully planned and results are stated in relative terms; procedures are not developed haphazardly or spontaneously.
If you want to see the film, I recommend renting it so you can watch a scene, stop the DVD, and then discuss relationship issues raised by the scene. For instance,
1. When Violet tells Tom that she was turned down for a post-doc position at Berkeley, have a discussion about your dreams. Discuss what will help you reach them? What changes might this entail in your relationship? How you could you support each other in attaining your dreams?
2. When Violet learns that she has been offered a post-doc at University of Michigan and waits for Tom to come home to break the news to him, discuss how you prefer to get difficult news. Discuss strategies for how to problem-solve together if either of you were to get difficult news that would deeply affect your relationship.
3. When Violet stands patiently waiting for her supervising professor to read her paper, ask each other about ways that you waste time that is not productive, energizing, or rewarding (like standing around waiting for someone to finish reading something)? If there are those things in your lives, then discuss whether or not there are ways to eliminate those energy drainers. If they can’t be eliminated, then discuss how you could experience that time in a positive, energizing way.
Just some thoughts about how to make a flawed fictional relationship work to enhance a real relationship. Another option is to skip the film altogether and just talk.
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