Leap Year (2010 film)

Leap Year
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Anand Tucker
Produced by	Gary Barber Chris Bender Roger Birnbaum Jonathan Glickman Jake Weiner
Screenplay by	Harry Elfont Deborah Kaplan
Starring	Amy Adams Matthew Goode Adam Scott John Lithgow
Music by	Randy Edelman
Cinematography	Newton Thomas Sigel
Edited by	Nick Moore
Production company	Spyglass Entertainment Benderspink
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release dates	January 8, 2010 (2010-01-08) (USA)
Running time	100 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$19 million
Box office	$32,607,316

Leap Year is a 2010 American romantic comedy film directed by Anand Tucker, and starring Amy Adams and Matthew Goode. The film is about a woman who heads to Ireland to ask her boyfriend to accept her wedding proposal on leap day, when tradition supposedly holds that men cannot refuse a woman's proposal for marriage. Her plans are interrupted by a series of increasingly unlikely events and are further complicated when she hires a handsome innkeeper to take her to her boyfriend in Dublin. The film premiered in New York City on January 6, 2010.

Plot

Frustrated that her boyfriend of four years, Jeremy, still has not proposed to her, Anna Brady travels from Boston to Dublin, Ireland to propose to him on February 29, leap day, while he is there at an international cardiologists' conference. According to Irish tradition, a man who is proposed to on leap day must accept the proposal. During the flight, a storm diverts the plane to Cardiff in Wales. Anna hires a boat to take her to Cork, but the severity of the storm forces her to be put ashore on the Dingle Peninsula. She enlists the help of a surly Irish innkeeper, Declan O'Callaghan, to taxi her across the country to Dublin to pull off the proposal in time. Meanwhile, her clumsiness in her room at the inn accidentally causes a power failure to the local village but also opens up the plot of Declans backstory and introduces the idea of a lost love from the picture that Anna finds in the armoire, causing distress from Declan and making it become more intriguing. This causes Anna to later bring up his past relationships as insult.

Declan refuses to drive Anna to Dublin, but after his pub is threatened with foreclosure the next morning, he agrees to drive her for €500. Before they leave, Declan gets frustrated at Anna's luggage and she snaps at him telling him to be careful, as her expensive Louis Vuitton luggage was a gift from her boyfriend. (Declan, misunderstanding, assumes that Anna has merely named her suitcase "Louis.") The bickering duo set out in Declan's old car, but they quickly run into a herd of cows blocking the road. Anna shoos them away but steps in a cow patty and leans on the car to remove it. As she leans on the car, it then rolls downhill into a stream. The two argue, and, angry at Declan, Anna walks away from him. She stops another car for a lift, but after offering to help her, three ne'er-do-wells take just her bags and drive away.

Anna and Declan, walking, eventually reach a pub where they discover the three thieves going through Anna's luggage. Declan gets into a fight with them, and they are both kicked out by the landlord. Anna and Declan eventually reach a railway station on foot. The train arrives and Anna misses it because she and Declan are touring a nearby castle ruin. The two go to a bed and breakfast, where they are forced to pretend that they are married so that their conservative hosts will allow them to stay. Asked their married name, they simultaneously answer 'Brady' and 'O'Callaghan', quickly amending that to 'O'Brady-Callaghan'. During dinner, Anna and Declan are then 'forced' to kiss, which causes some confusion for them. That night, they hesitantly sleep in the same bed. The next day, they take shelter from a hailstorm in a church where a wedding is taking place, where, after a series of events, Anna gets drunk. At this point, Anna begins to question her intentions with Jeremy when she realizes she has an attraction for Declan.

The following day they arrive by bus in Dublin. On the way to the hotel, they stop by a park and Declan reveals that he was once engaged but that his ex-fiancée ran off with his best friend and his family ring to Dublin; Anna encourages him to get his ring back. When they arrive at Jeremy's hotel, Jeremy surprises her and proposes to her, and she accepts after a hesitation—as Declan, dispirited, walks away.

Later, back in the USA at their engagement party, Anna learns that Jeremy decided to commit to her only in an effort to impress the manager of the expensive condominium the two were attempting to buy. Dismayed, Anna pulls the fire alarm and leaves after watching Jeremy grab all the electronics.

Anna goes back to the Dingle Peninsula in County Kerry, where Declan is successfully running his inn/restaurant. She proposes that they get together and 'not make plans', and Declan leaves the room. Anna interprets this as a rejection, so she rushes outside and ends up on the Cliffs of Moher overlooking the sea. Declan follows her and asks, 'Mrs. O'Brady-Callaghan, where the hell are you going?' and proposes to her with the family ring he retrieved from his ex-fiancée while in Dublin. She accepts and they kiss twice. Some time later, the two are shown driving in Declan's car with a 'Just Married' sign in the back window, while they playfully bicker about the expensive luggage, nicknamed 'Louis'.

Cast

• Amy Adams as Anna Brady, an ambitious "stager" who has her life planned out
• Matthew Goode as Declan O'Callaghan
• Adam Scott as Jeremy Sloane, Anna's doctor boyfriend whose own life plans might contradict those of his girlfriend
• John Lithgow as Jack Brady, Anna's father
• Kaitlin Olson as Libby
• Noel O'Donovan as Seamus
• Tony Rohr as Frank
• Pat Laffan as Donal
• Alan Devlin as Joe
• Ian McElhinney as Priest
• Peter O'Meara as Ron

Production

On October 17, 2008, it was announced that Amy Adams was to star in the film as Anna Brady. On November 23, Anand Tucker signed on to direct the film, with Simon Beaufoy, Harry Elfont and Deborah Kaplan collaborating on the screenplay. On February 12, 2009, it was announced that Matthew Goode would be playing the role of Declan O'Callaghan, the surly innkeeper. On March 18, it was announced that Adam Scott was to play Jeremy Sloane, Anna's long time boyfriend, and that Kaitlin Olson would play Libby, Anna's best friend. The film was shot in County Wicklow, Dublin, County Mayo and County Galway, with filming taking place in and around the Aran Islands, Connemara, Temple Bar, Georgian Dublin, Wicklow National Park and Olaf Street, Waterford. On October 19, it was announced that Randy Edelman had been chosen to compose the film's film score. The decision to choose Edelman came as a surprise, as Tucker had used Barrington Pheloung for two of his previous films, Hilary & Jackie and When Did You Last See Your Father?.

The film is often referred as the remake of a 2007 Bollywood film Jab We Met, though the creators deny it.

Reception

Critical response

Upon its release, the film received mostly negative reviews from critics. Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 21% based on reviews from 127 critics have given the film a positive review, with an average audience rating of 47%. The site's general consensus is that: "Amy Adams is as appealing as ever, but her charms aren't enough to keep Leap Year from succumbing to an overabundance of clichés and an unfunny script'." Metacritic, which assigns a weighted mean score out of 0–100 reviews from critics, has given the film a rating score of 33 based on 30 reviews.

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times described Leap Year as a 'full-bore, PG-rated, sweet rom-com'. 'It sticks to the track, makes all the scheduled stops, and bears us triumphantly to the station'. Also, Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a B- stating that the film could have used more 'pizazz'.

A. O. Scott of The New York Times saw it as 'so witless, charmless, and unimaginative, that it can be described as a movie only in a strictly technical sense'. Richard Roeper gave it a C-, stating that it had a 'Recycled plot, lame sight gags, Leprechaun-like stock Irish characters,' adding that 'The charms of Amy Adams rescue Leap Year from Truly Awful status'.

Donald Clarke of The Irish Times gave the film one star out of five, and in a scathing review, described it as 'offensive, reactionary, patronising filth' and cited the film as evidence that 'Hollywood is incapable of seeing the Irish as anything but IRA men or twinkly rural imbeciles'. Matthew Goode, who co-stars in the film, admitted 'I just know that there are a lot of people who will say it is the worst film of 2010' and revealed that the main reason he signed on to the project was so that he could remain close to home and be able to see his girlfriend and newborn daughter.

Box office

The film opened at the American box office at number 6, with a modest US$9,202,815, behind blockbusters Avatar, Sherlock Holmes, Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel, as well as Daybreakers and It's Complicated. The film's final gross of US$25,918,920 in the United States against a production budget of US$19,000,000. In addition to this, the film made US$6,688,396 in international markets, for a final worldwide gross of US$32,607,316.

Soundtrack

An audio CD soundtrack for Leap Year was released on the Varèse Sarabande record label on January 12, 2010. That album contains only the original score, composed and conducted by Randy Edelman. The musical selections that were used, and credited at the end of the film are not, available on CD. Those include:

• "More and More of Your Amor" by Nat "King" Cole (Bitter:Sweet's production released 2009)
• "I Want You" by Kelly Clarkson
• "I'll Tell My Ma" by the Colonials featuring Candice Gordon
• "The Irish Rover" by the Colonials featuring Candice Gordon
• "Day to Day" by Eulogies
• "Waltz with Anna" by the Brombies
• "Patsy Fagan" by Dessie O'Halloran and Sharon Shannon
• "Within a Mile of Home" by Flogging Molly
• "Buffalo Gals" by the Brombies
• "A Pint for Breakfast" by the Brombies
• "Leaping Lizards" by the Brombies
• "The Staunton Lick" by Lemon Jelly
• "Dream a Little Dream of Me" by the Mamas & the Papas
• "Only Love Can Break Your Heart" by Gwyneth Herbert
• "Never Forget You" by Noisettes
• "You Got Me" by Colbie Caillat, over the closing scene/credits
• "Just Say Yes" by Snow Patrol, used in the trailer

Home media

Leap Year was released on DVD in the United States on May 4, 2010. It debuted at number 4 on the American DVD rentals chart, with a first week rental index of 56.63. It placed 5th on the DVD sales chart, selling an estimated 159,843 units, and has sold almost 800,000 units in total to April 2013.

See also

• Jab We Met

External links

• Official website
• Leap Year at IMDb
• Leap Year at Rotten Tomatoes
• Leap Year at Box Office Mojo