Leap Year doesn't quite clear the bar

By Jackie Ammons     1/14/10 6:00pm

With Leap Year, it's clear that the 1960's legacy of Rock Hudson and Doris Day movies lives on. The plot of Leap Year is simple, the humor is basic and the romance is perfectly clean - no messing around in the bedroom for this couple. And while audiences still enjoy Hudson's and Day's flicks - Pillow Talk was added to the National Film Registry just last month by the Library of Congress - Leap Year lacks the special spark that marked Hudson and Day's movies, and instead exhibits a minimalism that tosses aside both excitement and originality. In Leap Year, Anna (Julie & Julia's Amy Adams) is a sharp young professional living in Boston with Jeremy (Step Brothers' Adam Scott), her boyfriend of four years. When Jeremy gives her diamond earrings instead of a diamond engagement ring, Anna decides to follow him on his business trip to Dublin after her father (Confessions of a Shopaholic's John Lithgow) tells her about an old Irish tradition that allows a woman to propose to a man on Leap Day. Anna's trip to Ireland turns into an adventure full of pitfalls and passion, and after many mishaps, she falls in love with her Irish cab driver, Declan (Watchmen's Matthew Goode).

If there's one thing that keeps the movie afloat, it is the beguiling cinematography. Leap Year's filming locations throughout Ireland are breathtaking. On their journey to Dublin, Anna and Declan move through rural countryside against a lush backdrop of mountains and valleys, along with a lovely castle that is set for their exploration. The majestic and bucolic landscapes add beauty and a touch of sophistication to the film.

And yet this same stunning environment creates some rather awkward and unoriginal moments in Leap Year. Time and again, the film shows Anna sliding down a muddy hill, dragging her suitcase through the rain, or running after a train through the mist. While the writers of Leap Year obviously intended these accidents as funny plot moments, these incidents instead led this viewer to pity Anna, making her already-desperate character even more pathetic.

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This weakness of the plot does not mean Adams and Goode failed to bring their chops to Leap Year - the failings of the movie lie in the material presented to both actors and audience alike. Both played the parts the script called for: Adams was a charming if somewhat confused young professional, and Goode played the scruffy, charmingly accented Irishman. But Adams' and Goode's characters are perfectly flat and undeveloped; there is nothing otherwise memorable or outstanding about them to capture audiences' attentions.

Just as the film's characters are boring and simple, so is the movie's plotline. The audience knows that, before the film's conclusion, Anna will reject her stable boyfriend in Boston and chase after the exciting Irish man. The film tries to make Anna's emotional shift seem like a dramatic turn, but no one in the audience should be surprised. Leap Year presents little in the way of thrills or twists.

And yet, in spite of Leap Year's simplicity in terms of character and plot, its minimalism is, in the end, somewhat refreshing - it is this simplicity that evokes the 1960's romantic comedies of Hudson and Day. But two hours of simple and refreshing dialogue and scenery with few moments of excitement and creativity - even bearing in mind the picturesque Irish landscape - fail to make Leap Year a film worth seeing more than once.

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