Leap Year (2010)





Imdb Ranking 6.1

Anna Brady lives in Boston and is a very compulsive and meticulous person. She works for realtors transforming spaces to make people want them. When her doctor boyfriend gives her earrings instead of a wedding ring, she wants to go to Dublin on February 29th to propose to him because of an Irish tradition that says a man receiving a marriage proposal on Leap Year must accept it. Her father has been telling her about this tradition for years.

When there is a storm during the flight the plane is diverted to Wales.She can't get a flight so she hires a fishing boat to take her to Cork but the storm forces her ashore at Dingle. She ends up in a pub and tries to get a taxi. The bartender, Declan, is the taxi driver and he says "Well, I'll tell you something about Dublin, Anna from Boston. Dublin is a city of chancers and cheats and backstabbing snakes, It's where the worst of humanity collects to poison this fair country. I wouldn't drive you to Dublin if you were to offer me 500 Euro."

The next day Declan agrees to take her. While pushing some cows off the road, the car goes rolling down a hill and they are walking and we are asking ourselves if we have seen this whole thing before. When Anna gets in some trouble with some locals, Declan helps out.

They make it to a train station and have a two hour wait. Declan points out Ballycarbery Castle, which he says is one of the ten wonders of Ireland is only fifteen minutes away. Declan starts walking to the castle and Anna soon follows behind. Declan tells Anna the legend of the young lovers at the castle. Anna thinks that Declan is hitting on her.

The train comes and they miss it. Off they go walking again. They spend a night at a bed and breakfast having to pretend that they were married to get a room. They cook together and share a great dinner and then that night they share the one bed. Then the next day Anna finds out there are no trains on Sunday. Off they go walking again. They end up crashing a wedding and dancing on the dance floor. When Anna's shoe come off it hits the bride in the forehead and then she spills a wine on her gown.

Anna misses a bus, but now doesn't seem to care too much. We then find out that Declan's old girlfriend ran off to Dublin with his best friend. Jeremy then shows up and the the first thing he does is propose to Anna and she accepts. As Anna flies back home she looks out the window at Ireland.

When she gets back home Anna finds out that the reason Jeremy asked her to be married is to get in to the apartment they really wanted, one that they had to be getting married to get. Anna then heads back to Ireland.

Beautiful views of Ireland but the movie was never able to convince you that these people who really didn't like each other were able to fall for each other so quickly. The magic of movies like It Happened One Night or I Know Where I'm Going is that you believe in the transformation. You want to believe as this movie goes along, you want to be convinced but it just doesn't happen.

A light romantic comedy that could have been better. The movie makes Irish look simple and slow and Americans look shallow and selfish.