Not really 'Leap Year,' not really that romantic
Arguing with "driver" Declan (Matthew Goode) is not the way Anna (Amy Adams) wanted to see Ireland. (Universal Studios)
There's a rare real moment in the sanitized, formula romantic-comedy "Leap Year" when Amy Adams, playing a depressed American redhead in Ireland, looks like she might just take a lover's leap off a very tall, but lovely cliff.
Luckily for the audience pre-hyped to swoon at the notion of a woman engaged to one man but engaging with another -- a stranger, even -- in a foreign land, "Leap Year" soon gets back to the fun at hand; tossing one's cookies in one of the few romantic moments, or accidentally letting a high heel fly that hits a bride of only a few minutes squarely in the forehead.
Throw in an ill-timed hailstorm and a rainstorm or two and you've got about all "Leap Year" has to offer.
Screenwriting partners Deborah Kaplan and Harry Elfont ("Made of Honor," "Surviving Christmas") provide enough situational softballs for excellent actors Adams (the twice Oscar-nominated co-star of "Julie & Julia") and Matthew Goode ("Watchmen," "The Lookout") to keep this laughably forced scenario interesting some of the time.
A sidebar, your honor: Kaplan and Elfont also collaborated with a couple other scribes on "The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas." About half-way through a screening in San Antonio in 2000, a fire alarm sounded in the theater. We all filed out. Only about half of the audience bothered to return when the "All clear" sign was given.
I can't say for sure. But if a picturesque cliff was nearby, some of the audience members might have considered a leap instead of a return to the Fred and Barney banality.
I don't understand how really good director Anand Tucker, who called the shots on Steve Martin's "Shopgirl" as well as "And When Did You Last See Your Father?," got involved in something of such little character depth or directing challenge.
For the record, "Leap Year" plows through trite formulaic romantic-comedy in a year that doesn't even have a Feb. 29th.
Somehow, that makes sense.
Luckily for the audience pre-hyped to swoon at the notion of a woman engaged to one man but engaging with another -- a stranger, even -- in a foreign land, "Leap Year" soon gets back to the fun at hand; tossing one's cookies in one of the few romantic moments, or accidentally letting a high heel fly that hits a bride of only a few minutes squarely in the forehead.
Throw in an ill-timed hailstorm and a rainstorm or two and you've got about all "Leap Year" has to offer.
Screenwriting partners Deborah Kaplan and Harry Elfont ("Made of Honor," "Surviving Christmas") provide enough situational softballs for excellent actors Adams (the twice Oscar-nominated co-star of "Julie & Julia") and Matthew Goode ("Watchmen," "The Lookout") to keep this laughably forced scenario interesting some of the time.
A sidebar, your honor: Kaplan and Elfont also collaborated with a couple other scribes on "The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas." About half-way through a screening in San Antonio in 2000, a fire alarm sounded in the theater. We all filed out. Only about half of the audience bothered to return when the "All clear" sign was given.
I can't say for sure. But if a picturesque cliff was nearby, some of the audience members might have considered a leap instead of a return to the Fred and Barney banality.
I don't understand how really good director Anand Tucker, who called the shots on Steve Martin's "Shopgirl" as well as "And When Did You Last See Your Father?," got involved in something of such little character depth or directing challenge.
For the record, "Leap Year" plows through trite formulaic romantic-comedy in a year that doesn't even have a Feb. 29th.
Somehow, that makes sense.
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