Written by: Harry Elfont & Deborah Kaplan
Starring: Amy Adams, Matthew Goode, Adam Scott, John Lithgow, Kaitlin Olsen, Tony Rohr
Rating: [3.5/5]
Unlike any other genre of film out there, romantic comedy has the ability to craft such a basic premise with quite the standard filmmaking but still has the capability to deliver something special solely because of the couple at the center. Believing and rooting for them leaves the sky as the only limit for what can be accomplished and in Leap Year we get exactly that with this couple at the center and this journey they go on together.
Desperate to get engaged to her current boyfriend, Anna (Amy Adams) takes the opportunity to visit him while he’s at a medical conference in Dublin, Ireland to propose to him on February 29th of a leap year. The tradition of the day gives her the ability to propose to him instead of the socially acceptable way of the man doing it. However, on her way over to Ireland, she runs into some transportation trouble and hired a local pub owner Declan (Matthew Goode) to drive her there.
As hokey as they come, Leap Year devises quite the premise and a storyline you can easily predict the points, but above all, it has such a fun rapport between the two individuals the audience wants to get together. Already in a relationship and desperate to want to get engaged, the last thing Anna needs is the headache brought to her by Declan but she found herself in a romantic comedy so these shenanigans must occur. Working as polar opposites, their initial annoyances with each other allow the initially icy relationship to blossom into something special.
The differences between these two could not appear starker from Anna’s very upper-class lifestyle back in Boston and the down-to-Earth standard Irish man like Declan. They live in different time zones and carry very different lives, which allows their clashing to reveal some ways in which Americans and the Irish differ and the communication differences between them. This does not indicate these two necessarily represent each nation, but in some ways, it surely comes close. Anna has the unbridled optimism typically ascribed to Americans and this go-to attitude in her insistence on making it to Dublin while Declan carries the typical European cynicism about how things operate making for many comedic instances between them.
Getting to Dublin proves quite the task for Amy as she learns not everything in Ireland runs the way they do in over in the United States. She’s shocked to learn the trains do run on Sundays and several traditions make it difficult to get certain things done because of the overall attitude of the individual inhabiting the country. It certainly makes for several moments where Amy appears as the airheaded American who needs to learn how the rest of the world works. Nothing quite sums it up more than when she needs to muck it through the countryside in her heels because she somehow did not think to bring any other comfortable shoes to walk in other than high heels. Something that makes one question if she actually wore heels on the plane ride over. I know it’s not too far from Boston to Ireland, but that’s simply ridiculous.
Running with the same tactic as most romantic comedies the push and pull between Declan and Amy reveals the similarities they bear and how much they deserve to be with each other on the same journey as they try to get her to Dublin to propose to her boyfriend. Amy Adams and Matthew Goode have some dynamite chemistry together as they bring these two characters to life in such engaging and fun ways. The scene at the inn where they stay with the Irish and Italian couple really sums it all up in displaying exactly what makes them a couple worth rooting for and ignoring the substandard elements of the feature.
Perhaps waiting out a relationship so long that the woman feels the need to travel across the Atlantic to reverse the tradition of proposing on a specific date does not signify the healthiest relationship. Evidently, it sets everything off with this very charming feature filled with all of the gaffes anyone could want in this genre on top of a winning couple who display exactly why we should root for them even if they cannot stand each other for the majority of the film. Amy Adams truly shines even with the material she receives here, which comes as no surprise considering the talent she possesses.
Films with Josh 
