Even with the marriage-plot inversion of a woman (Amy Adams) proposing to her boyfriend (Adam Scott) on Leap Day (February 29, the only day women are allowed to do this), Leap Year‘s plot wheels still need a remarkable base level of stupidity to keep them turning. Leap Year portrays Ireland as being in a state of twee infantalization, with no major highways, hotel standards, tolerance for common-law couples or magazine stands. And poor Adams seems to be stuck in a retrograde nightmare of her own. Caught between her drip boyfriend and a derisive, know-it-all Irish prick (Matthew Goode), Adams doesn’t get it that nowadays EVERY day is Leap Day, or better yet Sadie Hawkins Day. She should dump the clods the script gives her and ask out somebody better!
This article appears in Jan 28 – Feb 3, 2010.