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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.       

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Unscripted YouTube review of "Leap Year":
                                            


Read more movie reviews and stories from Omar here.
   

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