Leap Year (2010)
Romantic comedies are so hard for me to review, especially when I share the viewing experience with my wife. For the record, my wife seems to loathe romantic comedies and we find ourselves engaging in playful bickering back and forth about the absurdities in the film and her lack of romantic whimsy. This is where, I must admit that I am much more of a suck for romantic comedies than she is. Sacré bleu! This film was no different where for much of the film my wife was insistent that she would know what happened next and yet 9 times out of 10 she was wrong. Mwaha!
The story of the film Leap Year, involves a successful Boston woman (Amy Adams) who is fed up with her long-term boyfriend's inability to commit. He's a doctor or realtor or something and he gets whisked away to Ireland for some emergency thing.
Anna (Amy Adams) finds some ridiculous Irish tradition in which on leap years, February 29th, in Ireland women can propose to men and have it be all socially acceptable.Yay for progression! So off she goes on a impromptu journey to Ireland. But obstacle after obstacle hinders her attempts to get to Dublin in time to propose to her boyfriend. Along the way, she and we meet Declan (Matthew Goode) a jilted bitter owner/operator of a failing pub. He gets commissioned to take her to Dublin and high-jinks ensue and we bear witness to the magical transformation of Amy Adams from a prudish self-involved deluded woman, to spontaneous whimsical woman who can love.
So essentially a paint-by-numbers Rom-Com right? Well yes and no. It's predictable in the long run as most if not all Rom-Coms are, but as I described above, the clichéd moments you'd expect to see don't always occur as you'd expect. The film was self-aware enough to admit that some conventional plot devices would be too ludicrous in most real life situations, while ultimately still getting to the desired ending we all know and love.
The good: Amy Adams and Matthew Goode (not the singer) were enjoyable. The scenery alone is worth the film alone as we are treated to some gorgeous Irish locales. The attempts by the film, in places, to acknowledge that some situations would be too ridiculous to occur in real life.
The bad: The general portrayal of most Irish folk being annoying bastards willing to steal from ya, put you down, or generally just be annoying for a great portion of the film. Adam Scott was a waste as the initial love interest to spur Amy Adams into action while generally walking a fine line of not being dis-likable enough to cheer Amy Adams away from him into the arms of Matthew Goode.
Final Thoughts: This film was good for what it was when I watched it. A pre-work, overcast matinee movie for a Sunday. Nothing spectacular or particularly memorable to raise it above the masses, but not stupid enough nearly to be amongst some of the serious dregs of the rom-com genre.
Add to the Vault? As much as I enjoy Amy Adams, this wasn't good enough to be added to the vault. A one off for sure, but maybe I will watch it again after a couple more leap years transpire.
Enjoy the trailer!
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