Leap Year

In case you were wondering, you already know how this one ends.

Leap year is the story of a young woman going to Ireland to propose to her boyfriend on February 29th. Mayhem ensues.

Anna played by Amy Adams is an uptight real estate exhibitor. Her tour guide Declan, played by Matthew Goode, is a laid-back scruffy Irish bartender. The story itself has more or less been done before and it was handled much better in the hands of Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert in It Happened One Night - it just happens to be one of 3 movies that have won the Academy's five major awards.

Both actor's do a fine job. Adams is charming as usual. With all the cutesy roles one tends to forget how nice a body she has, nothing special, but nice. Matthew Goode, from recent Watchmen fame, fits quite nicely into his role. It is easy to tell why he was named one of the UK's rising stars. Individually they preform well in their roles, but there is little chemistry between the two as both characters seem to banter back and forth about the inevitability of the script.

Very little of this movie was shot in Ireland; but wait, how do you know? There is a very large distinction between the actors and the backgrounds in the shots with historic Irish landmark. This is truly surprising in an era of Avatar and the Lord of the Rings Series. You can create entire new worlds to feel natural but one Irish backdrop displaces you from the movie.

There is a new era of Rom-Coms featuring organized women in powerful positions, shown the light by grungy blue-collar men. Just because studios know their target audience will probably eat it up doesn't mean effort shouldn't be put in. Wait for a gloomy weekend, I'm sure USA will be showing an Amy Adams movie marathon soon enough. F