Leap Year (2010)
Directed by Anand Tucker
When yet another anniversary passes without a marriage proposal from her boyfriend, Anna decides to take action. Aware of a Celtic tradition that allows women to pop the question on Feb. 29, she plans to follow her lover to Dublin and ask him to marry her. Fate has other plans, however, and Anna winds up on the other side of the Emerald Isle with handsome, but surly, Declan -- an Irishman who may just lead Anna down the road to true love.
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Adams, who was so winning and so effervescent in both the Oscar-nominated movies "Junebug" (2005) and "Enchanted" (2007), can't do anything with the material she's being given.
As engaged as she was in Junebug, Enchanted, and Sunshine Cleaning, that's how disconnected she is here.
Oscar-nominated for her supporting roles in “Junebug” and “Doubt,” she has also appeared in well-regarded films including “Catch Me If You Can,” “Enchanted” and last year’s “Julie & Julia.”
As we've known since she earned an Oscar nod for "Junebug," there's nothing ordinary about her.
Adams, an exceedingly promising American actress as evidenced by turns in Catch Me If You Can , Junebug , and Doubt , demeans herself now in picaresque cash grab Leap Year when her Anna, wanting to be betrothed to douchebag cardiologist Jeremy (Adam Scott), is pushed into the brawny arms of bog-trotting Declan (Goode) in a happy-go-smacky Forces of Nature imbroglio.
But given that the movie so blatantly hews to the original It Happened One Night formula-- complete with drippy husband-to-be (Adam Scott, so much more fun when he's smarmy) waiting at the end-- it has to be said: these two are no Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable.
This one takes the idea of the glossy "French Kiss," the classics "I Know Where I'm Going" and "It Happened One Night" and about two dozen other squabbling-couple-dealing-with-a-disaster-prone-journey movies and, as Woody Allen once said of his mother's cooking, "puts it through the de-flavorizing machine."
In this heavily diluted version of those classics It Happened One Night and I Know Where I'm Going, on the way to wed Dream Man, Anna gets sidetracked by Sarcastic Guy.
Though a loose update of 1945's "I Know Where I'm Going," the soulless script patches together influences ranging from 1934's "It Happened One Night" to 1997's "The Matchmaker," which was also about an ambitious American who falls for a surly Irishman.
Instead of a tonal and story amalgam of Local Hero and It Happened One Night, we get a pile-up of tired moments that are the product of whomever did the Google search that revealed the leap day custom.
This film is unquestionably the most unromantic and downright despairing rom-com since Made of Honor or, possibly, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. Anna (Adams) is coiffed and costumed to resemble an uptown cross between The Quiet Man-era Maureen O'Hara and vintage Nicole Kidman, but the character is ill-flavored with a sort of ugly-American perkiness that sets your nerves on edge and makes you wonder in all seriousness if Tucker isn't employing some sort of wickedly dry, highly unsubtle cultural critique on both the U.S. and Ireland.
I'd say no one seems capable of making a great movie about an American falling in love in Ireland, if it weren't for John Ford 's 1952 classic " The Quiet Man ."
The plot of Leap Year, which traffics in broad stereotypes and imagines a romanticized rural Ireland straight out of The Quiet Man without even basic utilities, is a relic taken from the vault and dusted off after a 50 year or longer hibernation, when a woman proposing to a man would have seemed, if not scandalous, at least forward.
Everyone from John Wayne (The Quiet Man) to Janeane Garofalo (The MatchMaker) has been won over by a Loveblarney's charms, not to mention its commercial prospects.
This one bears a strong resemblance to " The Matchmaker ," a 1997 film starring Janeane Garofalo, and also to the recent, much lesser sapfest " P.S.
Though a loose update of 1945's "I Know Where I'm Going," the soulless script patches together influences ranging from 1934's "It Happened One Night" to 1997's "The Matchmaker," which was also about an ambitious American who falls for a surly Irishman.
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They get a good smile out of this, but wouldn't you be asking yourself why neither one mentions " Local Hero "?
Instead of a tonal and story amalgam of Local Hero and It Happened One Night, we get a pile-up of tired moments that are the product of whomever did the Google search that revealed the leap day custom.
Adams, an exceedingly promising American actress as evidenced by turns in Catch Me If You Can , Junebug , and Doubt , demeans herself now in picaresque cash grab Leap Year when her Anna, wanting to be betrothed to douchebag cardiologist Jeremy (Adam Scott), is pushed into the brawny arms of bog-trotting Declan (Goode) in a happy-go-smacky Forces of Nature imbroglio.
Then again, he's had practice; his part is nearly identical to the one he portrayed in 2004's " Chasing Liberty ."
Matthew Goode has slowly been building a solid and varied filmography and remains very appealing in not very good movies, "Leap Year" being his only misstep since his American feature debut in 2004's " Chasing Liberty" (a film I only remember for having taken note of the actor).
The all-around carelessness of the project extends to the by-the-numbers script credited to Deborah Kaplan and Harry Elfont (the team behind the immortal "Made of Honor" and "Surviving Christmas"), reportedly with an anonymous assist from Oscar winner Simon Beaufoy ("Slumdog Millionaire," "The Full Monty").
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The script, credited to Deborah Kaplan and Harry Elfont, endeavors to whip up some romantic chemistry by having Declan peg Anna as snooty and she regard him as provincial, but Bringing Up Baby or even Moonlighting this most assuredly isn't.
This film is unquestionably the most unromantic and downright despairing rom-com since Made of Honor or, possibly, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. Anna (Adams) is coiffed and costumed to resemble an uptown cross between The Quiet Man-era Maureen O'Hara and vintage Nicole Kidman, but the character is ill-flavored with a sort of ugly-American perkiness that sets your nerves on edge and makes you wonder in all seriousness if Tucker isn't employing some sort of wickedly dry, highly unsubtle cultural critique on both the U.S. and Ireland.