‘Leap Year’ highlights Irish countryside, but not much else
‘Leap Year’ starring Amy Adams and Matthew Goode
Sometimes I see movies for the wrong reasons. I wanted to
see
”
Leap Year
”
because it features actress Amy Adams and because it was mostly
filmed in Ireland.
Amy Adams is a very capable actress, who proved herself in such
heavy films as
”
Doubt
”
and
”
Sunshine Cleaning.
”
But she’s also been fun to watch in light movies such as
Disney’s
”
Enchanted.
”
As for the Ireland thing, I thought I might see some sights or
scenes that would remind me of the semester I spent there as a
student.
As it turns out, even the Irish scenery wasn’t enough to make
the predictable movie worth the watch.
‘Leap Year’ highlights Irish countryside, but not much else
‘Leap Year’ starring Amy Adams and Matthew Goode
Sometimes I see movies for the wrong reasons. I wanted to see “Leap Year” because it features actress Amy Adams and because it was mostly filmed in Ireland.
Amy Adams is a very capable actress, who proved herself in such heavy films as “Doubt” and “Sunshine Cleaning.” But she’s also been fun to watch in light movies such as Disney’s “Enchanted.” As for the Ireland thing, I thought I might see some sights or scenes that would remind me of the semester I spent there as a student.
As it turns out, even the Irish scenery wasn’t enough to make the predictable movie worth the watch.
“Leap Year”
Directed by Anand Tucker, and written by Deborah Kaplan and Harry Elfont, the movie tells a tale of an American woman who goes to Ireland and ends up with some bad luck as she tries to meet her boyfriend in Dublin.
Anna (Amy Adams) has been dating her cardiologist boyfriend for four years. Anna’s job as a real estate stager is going well. She and Jeremy (Adam Scott) are applying to live in an exclusive apartment complex in Boston. And she is sure he is about to propose to her. Jeremy is everything her father Jack (played by John Lithgow who I now can only picture as the Trinity Killer from “Dexter”) makes a short appearance in the movie when he shows up late to meet Anna. He tells her about an Irish tradition where a woman can propose to a man on Feb. 29 every Leap Year. Family legend has it that that is how Anna’s great grandparents got together.
So when Jeremy hands over a pair of diamond earrings instead of a ring before heading to Dublin for a conference, Anna decides to take control of her fate. But as soon as she starts her journey, she seems to have a bit of Irish luck – as Frank McCourt would have said, no one ever said the luck of the Irish means it’s good. First, her plane is diverted from Dublin due to an extreme rainstorm. Then the ferries from Wales, where she has landed, are all canceled. She finds someone to take her by tugboat to the shores of Dingle on the southwestern coast of Ireland.
The small village is deserted except for a small bar near the beach. Anna goes in and tries to hire a taxi. As it turns out, the owner of the bar is also the town’s taxi driver and he refuses to take her to Dublin because it is a town full of “cheats.” When she inquires about a place to stay, it turns out the bar owner also owns the only motel in town – above the bar.
Declan (Matthew Goode) eventually ends up offering to drive Anna to Dublin because he needs the money to save his bar. But the journey isn’t easy and includes cows blocking roadways, missed trains, a crashed wedding and plenty of scenes of Adams’ walking in rainstorms in high heels.
I am sure my Irish friends might be a bit offended by the way their countrymen and country are portrayed in the movie. After all, Dingle and the other places outside Dublin aren’t all the backwoods places they are made out to be – in fact, Dingle has its own tourism Web site where it boasts of kayaking, golfing and other activities.
But the real problem with the movie is that neither Anna nor Declan are all that likeable. She’s superficial and materialistic. He’s moody and sarcastic. Even the breathtaking scenes of the Irish countryside (none of which I had seen since I mostly spent my time in northern Ireland) didn’t make the movie worth the watch.
“The Matchmaker”
Next time I want to watch a movie about an American reluctantly falling for an Irishman, whom I know from personal experience can be very charming, I will revisit a movie I’ve seen a few times before. “The Matchmaker” came out in 1997 and it has a meatier plot than “Leap Year.”
In it, Marcy Tizard (Janeane Garofalo) is an assistant to a U.S. senator whose re-election campaign is in trouble. Senator John McGlory (Jay O. Sanders) decides to court the Irish-American vote by reconnecting with his Irish roots. He sends Marcy to Ireland to find his long-lost relatives. She lands in the village of Ballinagra in the middle of the annual matchmaking festival. Two local matchmakers make a bet that they can set up the single American who is not interested in romance. Her love interest is Sean Kelly (David O’Hara), whom she doesn’t meet under the best of circumstances – she finds him in her bathtub at the bed breakfast in which she is staying. They two continue to be thrown together throughout the story.
The movie is just much funny, and it shows off more of the country than rainstorms, although I will admit the rain is a big part of the deal there.
Melissa Flores can be reached at [email protected]. Visit her blog at melissa-movielines.blogspot.com for her thoughts on last week’s Golden Globes Awards, as well as posts about movies, TV, food and life in general.
