A cameo by the Lucky Charms guy couldn’t redeem Leap Year

Ireland-set movie makes reviewer uncomfortable throughout

By Zaren White

Leap Year

Starring Amy Adams, Matthew Goode, and Adam Scott

Universal

97 mins

Rated PG

With the frequency that digestible, passable romantic comedies are churned out and consumed, their formulaic construction is fairly obvious to the masses.

We know what to expect, and while we don’t go in expecting to be born again or have our Earth shaken, we are comfortable expecting some brief entertaining escapism that elicits laugher and brings mundane reactions such as cute and decent to mind.

The gimmicky blunders and mishaps that make us laugh are obvious to us, but we should be able to forget about their artifice long enough to believe that the plot could potentially happen and the characters could be that unfortunate and shortsighted.

Leap Year does not abide by this basic commandment of its genre. Awkward, stifled, poorly paced, and irritably simplistic, the film ventures on romantic and funny but is generally closer to boring and disconcerting.

Anna (Adams) is an uber-perfectionist from Boston with a quirky occupation amazingly revelatory of her personality – she “stages” apartments for sale.

She brings in furniture, décor, even puts cookies in the oven, to create a whole house “experience” for potential buyers.

When her longtime snuggle bunny Jeremy (Scott) fails to propose like she had expected and then leaves for a cardiology conference in Ireland a few days before Feb. 29, Anna remembers an old superstition: In Ireland, women can propose to men on Leap Day.

This is from real folklore – a superstition that, negotiated between Saints so-and-so back in the day, was an initiative to break the traditional roles of men and women by allowing women to propose to men.

Maybe that was progressive in St. Patrick’s heyday but the absurdity of the notion is debilitating to the film.

It allows for a great romantic gesture – Anna jetting to Ireland to surprise Jeremy by popping the question – but the chaos that results is not convincingly worth the “opportunity” to propose to Jeremy on Leap Day.

Hell-bent on getting to him by Feb. 29, prissy, impractical, annoying Anna meets many obstacles on the way. She turns up in hole-in-the-wall rural Ireland looking for a ride to Dublin. Her driver / travel chaperone turns out to be Declan (Goode), a surly, cynical local with whom she clashes so dramatically, it is evident they’re going to become irrevocably enamoured en route.

Leap Year suffers from a complete lack of coherence. Instead of being endearing in her annoying naiveté, impatience, and inability to bring sensible footwear when embarking on long treks, Anna is infuriating. Instead of being loveable, Declan – even performed by the savoury Matthew Goode – is repellent.

Anna and Declan are meant to hate each other initially, but even their animosity lacks chemistry. Their squabbles are tepid and lifeless, their predicaments are mostly humourlessly absurd, and the dialogue is so flat and strained, it evokes a feeling of embarrassment and discomfort.

A good romantic comedy convinces you of the highjinks of the characters to the point that you forget, ever so slightly, that you’re watching a manufactured product.

Leap Year’s strained artificiality rendered me continuously conscious of the film as a creation, and furthermore disconcerted, that someone actually wrote the jokes and thought, “yeah…that’s a good one.”

The film isn’t without some glimmers of promise and enjoyment. The setting in Ireland, providing panoramic seascapes, immense cliffs, and lush green hills (not to mention castles!) makes for beautifully scenic cinematography.

More importantly, Matthew Goode’s dreamy accent and roguish good looks make up for the movie’s uninspired execution. Almost.

1.5 out of 4 stars

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