Monday, January 11, 2010
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Monday, January 11, 2010
MOVIE REVIEW
Leap Year
Searching Hill And Dale In A Leap Of Faith, For A Love
Matthew Goode as Declan and Amy
Adams as Anna in "Leap Year", directed by Anand Tucker. The film opened
last Friday.
Universal Pictures
By Omar P.L. Moore/PopcornReel.com
Monday, January 11, 2010
"Leap Year" suffers from a leap of logic and is bereft of
ideas, even the most elementary ones, for a romantic comedy, one that picks up
where 2009's dreadful crop of Hollywood women-centered comedic (and unfunny)
films left off. As you watch Amy Adams, a better actress than she shows
here, you wonder whether she took a role in this hapless film out of necessity
for a quick and easy payday. Harsh words perhaps, which in truth Ms. Adams
doesn't deserve.
Anand Tucker, who directed the melancholic but effective "Shopgirl" in 2005,
tries his hand at sloppy seconds comedy with "Leap Year", in which
Anna, played by Ms. Adams
("Julie & Julia",
"Doubt") has to get to the church on time in Dublin to partake
in an age-old Irish tradition in which the bride-to-be proposes to the
prospective groom on the leap year date of February 29. Anna expects to be
engaged to her boyfriend Jeremy (Adam Scott,"Stepbrothers") and
has to suffer the indignities many American actresses in Tinseltown
comedies sadly endure -- setting soaked to the skin, tripping over shoe heels or
kicking them in someone's face, and other foolish endeavors -- just to get what
she wants. Life isn't easy, but why on earth is it
this
hard for women in the movies in 2010? Eighty years ago when
women were just getting the right to vote in America,
the portrayals of women in dramas and
comedies were a lot stronger in many instances.
In Ireland Anna gets the hospitality and mirth previously seen in films like
"Waking Ned Levine" and meets Declan, a local barman and cab driver (Matthew Goode,
"Watchmen",
"A Single Man") who tries to get her to Dublin. The film
spends its time wearing the beaten carpet out of a joke about materialism, which
isn't funny the first time it is heard. Like Michael Patrick King's
"Sex
In The City", Mr. Tucker's film takes egregious short cuts in character
development, showcasing Anna as a vacuous,
clumsy and borderline
contemptuous nag of a woman awash in materialism, virtually oblivious to her own
narcissism and selfishness. The screenwriters (Deborah Kaplan and Harry
Elfont), who either invested their
hearts and souls in this muddle or simply didn't think drawing a lead character
with a modicum of smarts was a good move, fail to conjure up anything meriting a
single laugh.
The one thing (make that two things) "Leap Year"
has going for it: a
cameo from John Lithgow and the beautiful Irish countryside,
lensed by Newton Thomas Sigel. Even Mr. Goode, who tries to make lemonade
out of the rotten lemons the script provides, falls flat with his endeavors
but at least he tries. Ms. Adams though, has seen far better days, and so for
that matter has Mr. Tucker. There are moments when the banter between
Ms. Adams and Mr. Goode is interesting enough to be engaging but those can
be counted on one hand. When it comes to the multiplex this or any subsequent
weekend you'd do yourself a big favor by leaping past this weak effort of
a film.
"Leap Year" is rated PG by the Motion Picture
Association Of America for sensuality and language. The film's
running time is one hour and 37 minutes.
Unscripted YouTube review of "Leap Year":
Read more movie reviews and stories from Omar
here.
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