Leap Year

Tonight I saw Leap Year, starring Amy Adams and Matthew Goode.

I'll start by saying, yes, I knew it would be terrible. But I needed a mindless girl movie tonight, and I suppose I deserved what I got.

Adams plays Anna, and the "A" stands for "Type-A." She stages apartments for a living in Boston and organizes the life of herself and her boyfriend for fun. Jeremy (Adam Scott) is an impressive cardiologist who is good to her, but has not yet popped the question, though they've been together for four years. When he travels to Dublin on business, Anna sees it as her opportunity to follow an Irish superstition and propose to him on February 29. All she needs to do is make it to Dublin and surprise him before then. She has one day...or maybe two days until the 29th. Ah, who cares? You know where this is going.

First, there's (scary, sudden) turbulence on her plane so they have to make an emergency landing in Cardiff. This is handled by the airline almost as nonchalantly as running out of gas with a AAA truck behind you on the highway.

Once Anna lands in Wales, she tries to convince the ticket agents to "re-open" the Dublin airport and when that (shockingly) doesn't work, she rents a boat. Somehow instead of ending up in Dublin, in the midst of the storm she finds herself on a tiny road in a remote Dingle village.

The locals nearly laugh her out of the pub she wanders into (tugging her Louis Vutton bag closely behind), but she has nowhere else to go, so she stays there for the night. What follows is the scene I was hoping wouldn't happen: the obligatory American Woman knocks out the town's power trying to plug in her Blackberry™.

But wait, it gets worse.

The pub owner just happens to be Declan (Goode), who is rough around the edges, but undeniably cute. He agrees (for a large sum) to drive her to Dublin the next day. Small talk turns into sexual tension (via "arguing") and then a herd of cows delay their trip. You heard me: a Herd of Cows. On an Irish country road. The only thing surprising about this scene was that it was cows, not sheep.

Anyway, because of some ridiculous chain of events caused by Anna's American princess impatience, they're soon car-less and back on the road. And they miss a train. And they have to stay in a charming Bed & Breakfast, pretending of course to be married because the old Irish folk wouldn't rent the room to a sinning couple.

I won't even bore you with the rest because you already know what happens. How it happens isn't even difficult to decode.

I'm just incredibly disappointed these delightful actors took the roles because the material was way beneath their talent. Perhaps they just wanted the free time in Ireland? I should hope that was the reason.

And I hope they never do it again.