Source: celebritywonder.ugo.com
I'm thumbing through the DVR tonight, and I see my choices are Invictus and Leap Year. Invictus is an eventuality for me - I knew it from the first preview - but not a step I wanted to take tonight.
When I watch movies about causes I always get convicted and conflicted and twisty inside. I can't do that with work in the morning.
I was excited by the description provided: "In this whimsical romantic comedy, a young woman decides to strong-arm her Irish boyfriend into marriage by flying to his home country and proposing to him on leap day when tradition forces him to accept."
Romance? Comedy? Ireland? Amy Adams?? Cha-ching.
I will say that when I start a movie from this genre, I start by lowering my expectations a notch or two. I don't think romcom is about art, or profound impact, or even quotable screenplay. It's about finding hope in a cynical world, about forgetting cares and mental heavy lifting for a few hours. About the ultimate idyllic connection we aspire to find in someone else on this planet. And while some might suggest that this unrealistic standard can reflect poorly on the real relationships we have, I think it's important to see a higher standard every once in a while. It helps find the great in our ordinary.
The plot of Leap Year has a healthy weight to it. Yes, we've heard the opening theme of unrequited love or at least a relational imbalance time and time again. But Amy Adams and Adam Scott do a great job of muddying the waters a bit. Their slightly sterile connection is actually kind of cute - like the director wants to shine a hopeful light on the ability for anyone, no matter their neurosis or compulsion, to find a good connection. Amy & Adam are stiff, precise, career-obsessed, and materialistic. And they love each other for it. When Adam misses the mark and doesn't propose to Amy, she decides to take matters into her own hands -- though I'm not sure why John Lithgow was determined to be necessary to the film to share 3 minutes about the Leap Year tradition in Ireland in which women propose to men. The part was simply beneth him, and I hope he had some sort of personal interest in the film that warranted such an ill-placed cameo. So yes, I know it isn't realistic for most of us to be able to afford an impromptu flight to Ireland to propose to our stubborn boyfriends, but it was believable for Amy's character. That's all I needed. I also like the ripe tension between Amy and Matthew Goode. Their banter and blunt way of interacting with one another is so fun to watch - to imagine ourselves engaging in - that I found myself giggling like a school girl. I think I was okay attributing some of the pushiness in Matthew's punchlines to his shallow acting career, though there were a few moments when I felt like saying "Yes Matt dear, I get the play on words. Very punny." Writers always have to overcome the gap in reality a script presents when the leading lad and lassie have to fall in love in a few days or a week or something. Noone. Well at least noone I know would drop their job, home, fiance, and nation for the love of a man whose middle name they did not know. Whose underwear drawer and medicine cabinet has not yet been raided. Whose mother they haven't met. At the same time, we picky audience members don't want to see all that stuff. We just want to believe that the steps have been taken appropriately.
AHH, but the witty writers push Amy and Matthew into a situation that requires they burst through the normal social process - even forcing the couple to feign marriage and publicly kiss one another senseless. I can believe that Amy felt something when pushed into an intimate situation she would not have logically been in, and subsequently having to process the new emotions. Again, that's all I need!
About that kiss.
One facet of romcom I can't look past is an unauthentic connection between the leading couple. What is the point in a staged kiss, in a long stare that has no passion behind it? This bastardizes the concept of love, of the poignancy of an intense moment in the script. It's like finding a typo in a romance novel. It pops the bubble. Actors can get away with a flat kiss in an action movie, but not in a romantic comedy. The kiss - the connection - is really all the movie's about. And that's the most dissapointing part of Leap Year, in my opinion.
Amy just isn't into Matthew. Yes, she reaches out to him when they kiss, but it's very staged and she barely rests the full weight of her hand on his neck. I pushed through it the first time, but then that horrible end scene came along.
Ugh. I just don't know HOW to feel about that scene. I mean they're in Ireland, so I guess they deserve the sillouhette shot, but why all the recycling of script at the end? It's like the director thumbed through the screenplay and started finding all the "good lines" to squeeze into the last five minutes.
For Matthew to tie "Louis" to the top of his beat up car and jest that a "throw in the wash" will fix him up is just plain wrong. I was going to give Leap Year two thumbs up from the romantic grading system - definitely not the regular weight...more like two pinkies up - until I saw the end of the film. I have seen cliffs used in film to evoke huge emotion, to ponder our insignificance, to bring us to the very edge of our reality. Instead of aspiring to such heights, Leap Year gave into its weaknesses and used this beautiful scene to poke some jokes and force the audience to watch two people with no connection kiss each other for a million dollar bet. It was utterly painful to watch, and a game changer for me.
Pride and Prejudice wins cliff usage points.
Thelma and Louise win cliff-jumping-off points.
Bella gets cliff usage points, like woah.
Even though there is no cliff at all, Scarlett gets cliff usage points for this poignant cliff-standing-ish-pivotal-moment at the end of Act 1 in Gone with the Wind.
What does Leap Year give me? Matthew getting on one knee and saying "It's kind of soggy down here, so what'll it be?"
Oy.
A mini teeny weeny romcom one thumb up for me. Go ahead and watch it - Amy Adams nose will make up for most of it! (Isn't she just the cutest bunny in girl's clothing you've ever seen?)
