Take A Leap

Leap Year, the RomCom with Amy Adams, as a woman on a mission to propose to her boyfriend on Leap Day, and Matthew Goode, as Declan, the local who offers to help the woman get to Dublin, opened today. And like the good chick flick-er that I am I made a date with my sister to check it out opening night. When I came across the trailer a couple months ago, I wanted to see it for pretty much one reason: Matthew Goode and his scruffy beard. Seriously.

If you checked out the trailer, let me tell you two things: one, Amy Adams' character is a lot less shallow than she comes across in the trailer; and two, seeing the trailer means you've pretty much seen the movie--the entire plotline and story is literally right there in that two minute trailer, plus all the funniest parts of the movie. I hate it when trailers do this; they are meant to entice you to see a movie, not make seeing the movie moot.

I had high hopes for this movie, but sadly, it didn't quite live up to them. I know that in a RomCom, it's customary for the couple to be thrown together and spend the movie not realizing that they love each other. In Leap Year, there comes a point when in real life, the gentleman would not continue on with the woman (although, if this happened to me in real life and the gentleman looked like Matthew Goode, I'd go with it). Also, the woman is on her way to propose to her boyfriend of four years, and in their scant scenes together, Anna and Jeremy actually seem to be a normal couple who love each other; so her falling for a complete stranger in two days seems a bit of a stretch. But this is not real life. It's a movie, so belief is suspended for a little while.

So even if I felt like the leads didn't have a lot of chemistry, and that the plot was very predictable and cliche, and for some reason I find Amy Adams to be a little annoying, it was still a decent RomCom. And really, how bad can a movie be when you have a bearded, messy-haired (yeah, I clearly have a type, as evidenced by my love for John Keats as well) Matthew Goode in it, looking very good in a peacoat, flannel shirt and cords. Yep, that's my critical analysis of the film.