Film Review: Leap Year

Ah, romance.  Every year it is the same story: a writer somewhere decides it's time for romance, writes a bogglingly horrid script, though to him/her it just might be the best script they have ever written, producers brainstorm as to how strategic they should be in the promotional aspect of the upcoming movie, a director is awaken from his sleeping quarters to harness the responsibility of handling the direction, and, finally, handsome actors are cast to bring to life characters that, let's face it, shouldn't have been breathed life into.

Leap Year succumbs to all of the above.  The screenplay is written by the duo who brought us Josie and the Pussycats and Can't Hardly Wait: Deborah Kaplan and Harry Elfont.  Bringing this stale tale is Anand Tucker, who is perhaps best known for his sharp and cinematically appealing film, Shopgirl.  How he went from Shopgirl to Leap Year is a question better left unanswered.  Finally, lending the story life are Amy Adams and Matthew Goode.

Amy Adams plays Anna, a Boston apartment stager who knows exactly what her clients want, but falls to see what she really wants.  What she thinks she wants is to drop by in Dublin to put into practice an Irish traditon of women proposing to their respective beaus on Feb. 29th.  Landed on the wrong side of the country, Wales, Anna hires Declan, played by Goode, as her driver; as she tracks across Ireland, Anna starts to question her desires when attraction for Declan unbalances her plans of proposing to her boyfriend.  At this point, when Anna meets Declan, the female demographic can narrate the whole film without having to look up from their popcorns and sodas, the film is that hopelessly predictable.

However, the cinematography is the only saving grace, or for the most part, the only watchable segment of the film.  The movie has incredible views of the Irish landscapes.  Whenever Anna and Declan are tracking across an open territory, the camera pans out into a larger frame and saves us from having to listen to their predictable colloquy.  The cinematography is as fresh as the story of Leap Year is recycled.

Adams, better known for her vulnerable emotionality in films such as Doubt, manages to extract some sympathy from the viewers. For example, in the scene where Anna is preparing a meal with Declan, she recalls her troubled teen years, Adams wins in channeling the vulnerability that reminds us why we like her in the first place.  Goode, on the other hand, plays his part rather awkwardly.  He seems mostly uncomfortable in the scenes he's given.  But he is handsome enough to force a reluctant lady to seat up and pay attention to his wide-eyed, roguish Declan.

The film is horribly formulaic.  There is nothing, except for the cinematography, in this film that should appeal to anyone.  It is not even worth the $1 for the rental.  I watched it to kill time, and something tells me that Adams and Goode did this film as a way to stay active while they wait for their bigger projects.

No amount of ratings can justify this sick rom-com.