The Five-Year Engagement(2012)

Plot Summary

• Tom Solomon (Jason Segel), a sous chef at a fancy restaurant, and Violet Barnes (Emily Blunt), a psychology PhD graduate, are a happy couple in San Francisco who get engaged a year after they began dating. A year ago, they met at a New Year's make up your own superhero party. Tom was a super bunny, and Violet was dressed as Princess Diana. They host an engagement party for their family and friends. Tom has parents Carol (Mimi Kennedy) and Pete (David Paymer). Violet has parents Sylvia (Jacki Weaver) and George (Jim Piddock). Before Tom, Violet was dating Gideon (Adam Campbell) for 4 and a half years. Gideon turns up to the engagement party and is distraught that Violet is marrying Tom.Their nuptials get interrupted when Tom's best friend Alex Eilhauer (Chris Pratt) gets Violet's sister Suzie (Alison Brie) pregnant at Tom and Violet's engagement party and the two marry before Tom and Violet.Their nuptials get further delayed when Violet gets accepted into the University of Michigan's post-doctorate in psychology program which lasts two years. Tom agrees to move with her and delay their wedding until then. However, when he tells his boss Chef Sally (Lauren Weedman), he becomes disheartened when she states she was planning on making him head chef at a new restaurant in town.In Michigan, Violet settles into her new job nicely under her professor Winton Childs (Rhys Ifans). She bases her main thesis on people opting to eat stale donuts versus waiting for fresh donuts, associating impulse-control problems with personal and professional instability. However, Tom, unable to find a suitable chef's position, ends up working at Zingerman's Delicatessen and taking up hunting with Bill (Chris Parnell), a fellow university faculty spouse. Violet settles into her new job under professor Winton Childs, working with Doug (Kevin Hart), Ming (Randall Park), and Vaneetha (Mindy Kaling) . Tom and Violet's nuptials get delayed even further when Winton receives NIH funding with Violet's help, enabling him to extend her program. Tom is upset by the news, and he and Violet fight over his unhappiness with their new life. Violet's research proves that people who eat stale donuts, instead of waiting for fresh ones, are essentially screw-ups.In the meantime, grandparents of both Tom and Violet die. Tom is angry when Violet again asks him to postpone marriage & extend their stay in Michigan. Tom hates Michigan as he had to give up a successful career in San Francisco to come & support Violet.As years pass, Tom becomes increasingly disillusioned with his life, which becomes evident to Violet when she sees him eat a stale donuts. Alex, Suzie, and their daughter Vanessa visit, and reveal Suzie is pregnant again. Tom responds that he no longer wants to have a child, surprising Violet, who offers to look after Vanessa with Tom, but the night turns into a disaster after Vanessa shoots Violet with Tom's crossbow.While at a bar with colleagues, a drunken Violet and Winton kiss each other which Violet immediately regrets. She then visits Tom at work and tells him she wants to plan their wedding now, to which Tom happily agrees. Tom cleans himself up and they make arrangements together.Everything goes well until Violet decides to confess to Tom about kissing Winton. Tom gets disillusioned about their relationship, which reaches a climax when Winton comes to Tom and Violet's rehearsal dinner to try to apologize. Tom refuses his apology and starts chasing Winton away, with Violet trying to catch up, but Winton gets away after Tom insists that he run or fight him. A drunken Tom then runs into one of his Zingerman's co-workers and has the chance to have sex with her but opts out. He wakes up half-naked in the snow with a frostbitten toe, and he is taken to the hospital where the toe is amputated. Violet visits Tom at the hospital, where they call off their engagement.Tom moves back to San Francisco and becomes a sous-chef under Alex at the new restaurant, while also starting a relationship with the hostess Audrey (Dakota Johnson). Audrey is young & restless & drains Tom with all her sexual demands & energy. However, Tom's parents and Alex see that Tom is dissatisfied with his new life and motivate him to act upon this.Violet starts a relationship with Winton but often reminisces about Tom, who wishes her a happy birthday via email, including a video of Ming's ridiculous experiment on his friend Tarquin. She receives an assistant professorship at the university but becomes upset when she learns she got the job because Winton wanted to keep her in Michigan rather than her abilities as a researcher and breaks up with Winton.Violet calls Tom, who has returned to San Francisco, working as a sous-chef under Alex and dating the hostess, Audrey. Their friendly-but-awkward conversation takes a turn as they argue over Violet's stale donuts experiment as a metaphor for their relationship, and both end the call upset. Alex fires him, telling Tom that he is the better chef and should open his own franchise. Tom launches a specialty taco truck.Violet receives an assistant professorship but learns she was hired because she is dating Winton and breaks up with him. After lunch with his parents, Tom decides to win Violet back and breaks up with Audrey. He surprises Violet at her grandparents' funeral in England, and they agree to spend the remainder of the summer together in San Francisco, rekindling their relationship while sharing an apartment and working in the taco truck.Driving Violet to the airport, Tom offers to take his truck to Michigan and continue their relationship. Violet proposes to Tom at the side of the road, just as he did five years before, and Tom reveals the ring he originally gave her, explaining that he was planning to re-propose at the airport. They head to Alamo Square, where Violet has organized their family and friends for an impromptu wedding. Tom chooses between Violet's various options for the officiant, clothing, and music, and they finally marry.Tom and Violet share their first kiss as a married couple, and the film flashes back to their first kiss when they first met at a New Year's Eve party. Alex and Suzie sing "Cucurrucucu Paloma" on a carriage ride with the newly-wedded couple.

Storyline

• In San Francisco, after a year's relationship, Tom proposes to Violet; she accepts. She's an experimental psychologist, hoping for a post-doc at Cal. He's a sous chef who runs the kitchen when the chef is away. When Cal falls through and she gets an offer in Ann Arbor, Tom agrees to support the move, turning down a job as chef at a new restaurant. The move requires postponing the wedding. At Michigan, Violet is in her element, but Tom is underemployed and frustrated; he's Stoic for a while, but when two years in Michigan become four, Tom's frustrations boil over, and on the eve of yet another wedding date, they must make a choice. Is there any other alternative? — On New Years Eve, the one year anniversary of their meeting, San Francisco based Tom Solomon and Violet Barnes get engaged. Jewish-American Tom, currently a sous chef at a trendy restaurant, eventually wants to own his own restaurant. Christian-Brit Violet's immediate goal is to do post-doctorate academic work in psychology at UC-Berkeley. In addition to working toward their professional goals, they are planning their wedding for an undetermined date, the event which they envision to be perfect much like their marriage will be, to make up for the less than perfect proposal which did not quite come off according to Tom's plan. Trying to coordinate this perfection to occur all on the same date is challenging enough without the thoughts and goings-on of their friends and loved ones adding to the complications, including Tom's best man, Alex Eilhauer, his coworker with a frat boy mentality, and Violet's maid of honor, her constantly in tears sister Suzie Barnes. Their wedding plans take a major hit when Violet does not get the Berkeley job as she had hoped, but is offered a similar position in the Psychology Department at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Violet and Tom decide collectively that Violet should take the job, while Tom will move there to support her until her two year contract is over, when they can move back to San Francisco to resume planning for their perfect wedding. But they find that life in Michigan together is not perfection, which changes both their outlook on life and their view of what they have to do to maintain that harmonious relationship, which may threaten them making it to the altar in its entirety. — Huggo In Los Angeles, the chef Tom Solomon meets the psychologist Violet Barnes in a New Year's Eve party and they immediately fall in love with each other. One year later, Tom proposes Violet to get married and they schedule their wedding date. However, the application of Violet to the University of Michigan to a master's degree is accepted and Tom declines to the offer of his boss Chef Sally to be the chef of a famous restaurant that belongs to her. His best friend and assistant Alex Eilhauer, who is married with Violet's sister Suzie Barnes-Eilhauer, accepts the position. They postpone the wedding and Tom and Violet move to Berkley for two years. While Violet befriends her Professor Winton Childs and colleagues , Tom has difficulties to find a job and work is a restaurants specialized in sandwiches. Two years later, when Tom is ready to return to Los Angeles, Violet is invited to be assistant professor in Michigan. What will happen to the couple? — Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Exactly one year after Tom Solomon meets Violet Barnes, he surprises her with a ring. By all accounts, Tom and Violet are destined for their happily ever after. However, this engaged couple just keep getting tripped up on the long walk down the aisle. — Anonymous