I’m no fan of Rom-Com’s unless it’s got a Zom in the middle of it or it’s the surprisingly decent “It’s Complicated”, and I struggle to understand what is the point of them as most are so formulaic and predictable but they keep getting made with little degree of success so I entered the screening of Leap Year with little confidence and walked out at the end with little to boost my feelings towards this genre.
The film tells the story of Boston girl Anna Brady (Amy Adams) who’s waited very patiently for her long time boyfriend Jeremy (Adam Scott) to propose to her. On the eve of his departure for a medical convention in Dublin, Jeremy leaves Anna with a pair of diamond earrings when she expected an engagement ring. With her disappointment set in Anna decides she’s going to Dublin to propose to her boyfriend on February 29th. This act being tradition in Anna’s family as she is told by her grandfather Jack Brady (the criminally underused John Lithgow) it’s how her grandmother proposed to him.
Off goes Anna to Dublin to propose but due to bad weather has to stop off at Cardiff, Wales and has to commandeer a boat to take her to Ireland where she arrives in a small town and has two days to arrive in Dublin so she can propose, who would take this pretentious Louis Vuitton luggage carrying out of towner? Step forward Declan (Matthew Goode) a stereotypical Irish Bar owner who only due to having serious money problems to keep his bar running takes on the duty to escort Anna to Dublin for a fee.
So off the two go through the wonderful setting of the Irish countryside, that takes the staring role of the film, on a road journey of convenience that blossoms into a predictable unlikely blossoming romance. Just explained the movie in 25 words! And that again is the problem of another generic Rom-Com, it’s just to predictable and with almost every
avenue leading to an inevitable conclusion that just bored me throughout, some people will like it and fair enough as Amy Adams and Matthew Goode were good together on screen and some viewers will quite happily let the film playout with its inoffensive story and charming wit but I personally cannot bare to watch anything like that again.
There were a few reasonably funny scenes like when they are stuck at a cottage in the middle of nowhere with the owners and another couple and have to pretend to be a married which eventually fuels their romance to begin but that was about all that raised a smile throughout the film which was a shame but not unexpected. My wife who came along also hated it and she is fond of a Rom-Com or two so I gauge her reaction as a valuable guide to what to expect.
Overall, won’t revolutionise the genre but has a reasonable performance from Amy Adams and Matthew Goode and the scene stealing wonderful Irish countryside that will help soften the blow of its dire story and obvious conclusion. Go see if your incredibly bored or need a mindless film to go see on a date with a girl with a short attention span, but be careful she might get ideas for the next leap year in 2012 when the world apparently ends.
It would have been great marketing if there was a leap year this year but there isn’t, so it’s out on 26th instead.
