Leap Year (2010)
By: Anand Tucker (director), Deborah Kaplan, Harry Elfont (writers)
Starring: Amy Adams, Matthew Goode, Adam Scott, John Lithgow
A woman who has an elaborate scheme to propose to her boyfriend on Leap Day, an Irish tradition which occurs every time the date February 29 rolls around, faces a major setback when bad weather threatens to derail her planned trip to Dublin. With the help of an innkeeper, however, her cross-country odyssey just might result in her getting engaged.
Leap Year surprised me. Matthew Goode—The film’s male lead—implied that it’s one of the worst films of the year, so I fully expected to want to gouge my eyes out by the end. Amazingly, I actually enjoyed myself despite its trite rom-com script and rampant tropes. There’s nothing new here, but who honestly goes into a romantic comedy at this point and expects innovation? Amy Adams is as thoroughly charming as ever, and she alone makes the film worth seeing if you’re a fan of the genre. She has believable chemistry with Goode, and more’s the pity that the film isn’t better overall. It’s nothing new and the stereotypical Irish characters are a little irksome, but the film is solid and doesn’t deserve a lot of the negative press it’s getting.
but the film is solid and doesn’t deserve a lot of the negative press it’s getting
The whole “I can’t die before I get engaged” bit completely justified a lot of that negative press in my mind.
…I don’t recall that bit. At all.
Maybe they cut it from the final film? It was definitely in the trailer as the plane was going through extreme turbulence and she thought she was going to die.
The turbulence part was very short, but it’s possible I missed it. Even so, I think the context changes things—Nothing about the film has to do with Adams being desperate to get engaged. She’s been with her bf for 4 years, thought he was going to propose and when he didn’t, decided to do it herself. Even at the end, when she has her ~moment~ with Matthew Goode, she says she DOESN’T want to get engaged. So maybe just misleading editing in the trailer.