It's love at first sight for ambitious ad exec Nat (Rose Byrne) and writer Josh (Rafe Spall) struggling after his first book. Her friend Naomi (Minnie Driver) says, "I give it a year." at their wedding. That seems to be the opinion of almost everybody about the opposite pairing. Danny (Stephen Merchant) is the embarrassing best man. His ex Chloe (Anna Faris) seems to be a better fit. Guy Harrap (Simon Baker) is Nat's new client. Nine months later, the couple feels something is wrong with the pairing and they go to counseling.

There are some fun jokes. The comedy from the couple is mostly awkward. The pairing of Byrne and Spall seems off which is kind of the idea of the movie. Part of the problem is that their courtship is done in a series of montages. The audience never gets a chance to see them in love. They don't fit and they're not always naturally funny together. They should not play it as a rom-com. Instead they should be a lot angrier with lots of black comedy. Stephen Merchant is having loads of fun. Anna Faris has a weird threesome scene that seems unattached. Rose Byrne is hilarious in the dove scene. This seems to be a lot of funny ideas trapped in an awkward rom-com. Writer/director Dan Mazer who normally works with Sacha Baron Cohen is unable to fit his wacky sense of humor within the strict confines of a rom-com. He should skip the rom-com and make a truly black comedy instead. A black comedy would actually work quite well.

It's obvious where this is leading and it has quite a lot of funny moments along the way. If you are for the inappropriate kind of jokes Stephen Merchant is there to serve your needs. But since this is not a stand up competition he won't be there for the whole nine yards, just for some nice little moments along the way.

Rose Byrne is wonderful as ever (also watch the Outtakes/Gag reel if you can) and holds the movie and the crazy scenes together. There is nice scene towards the end at a Restaurant, that could've gone completely wrong, but it sort of works. It's a nice scene that does something that some might have wanted it do much earlier. But at last it happens. So a nice little romantic comedy then

"I Give It a Year" is labeled as a romantic comedy. Well, sure that is true enough, though it is heavier on the romantic aspect as to what it is in the comedy department.

That being said, don't get me wrong. I am not saying that this movie is not good, because I actually did enjoy watching it. I am just saying, don't expect to be laughing a lot throughout the movie. I think I actually just laughed once, and it was during the photo-frame scene with the in-laws.

The story in "I Give It a Year" is a good story, especially because director Dan Mazer managed to tell it in a very captivating way, and managed to keep the movie running at a continuous flow. There weren't really any boring moments throughout the course of the movie.

To summarize the movie's storyline briefly, then Josh (played by Rafe Spall) and Nat (played by Rose Byrne) are married on nine months, but things are far from well. Especially because Josh's former love Chloe (played by Anna Faris) is in the picture. And things doesn't take a turn for the better when Nat lands a new client, an American named Guy (played Simon Baker) who is instantly charmed by her.

The cast really delivered some great and realistic performances here, and they had managed to get together a great ensemble of actors and actresses. Aside from the four lead actors and actresses, then it was also nice to see Jason Flemyng in this movie, his character was rather nice.

The movie is predictable, yes, but still, director Dan Mazer managed to keep the movie fresh and interesting from start to finish. If you enjoy movies that bear a resemblance to what you could experience in real life, and enjoy these type of romantic movies, then by all means, you should watch "I Give It a Year".