Leap Year
Most of you know that I am generally antagonistic to romcom. Often times I watch these films and think, "Quit lying to me!" Especially if the heroine is particularly stupid, manipulative, or worse, pretty pretending to be plain. However, there are always exceptions to the rule, and one of the things that's occurred to me is that: these are still films about women, and beloved by women, and offer a good opportunity to bond with the other women in my life.
Leap Year is about an obsessive compulsively inclined woman who has built herself a 'perfect' life down to the cardiologist she's been dating for four years. She is ready for the ring and invoking a family superstition she 'confirms' on the internet, she sets off for Dublin where he is staying for a medical conference, because apparently Leap Year is the Sadie Hawkins day for proposals.
Fate intervenes in the form of weather and a surly Irish taxi-driver who is surely the love interest in this film. They fight like cats and in their trek across Ireland complete with requisite disasters: dung, mud, missed connections, and puking on each others shoes, they fall in love.
There are few surprises in this film, but there are some really lovely moments, and Amy Adams does sincerity well. I was also touched at how much of her 'fine lines and wrinkles' they chose to include in the film. (Subtly lighting her better on her Irish sojourn than during her her 'perfect' life in the city.) These films are marketed squarely at my demographic, and they argue subtly for the same thing I argue for in my recent manifesto on love. Many of the recent romcom formulas focus less around women unable to find partners, but women who have yet to awake passion in their lives because they are focused on perfection or security.
The dreaded 'pink books' (chic lit) have a similar formula. One explodes the current relationship in preference of something more genuine and passionate. The other features a women who strays only to find that no, she prefers her man.
I think there were a few lovely moments in the film. The seductive storytelling in the castle was a marvelous moment and one of the many moments in the film that refers to one of my favorite classic films: I Know Where I'm Going about a woman set to marry an industrialist during wartime until fate in the form of the weather and a local laird on leave. One of the wise things about that film is that they never actually show her originally intended groom. He is abstracted into the entire 'Consolidated Chemical Company' about which she dreams of marrying on the train.
And there is a reference to the Clark Gable & Claudette Colbert classic It Happened One Night when the couple unexpectedly has to spend the night together, though Leap Year doesn't manage anything quite so seductive as that sheet. (Hitchclock's thriller The Thirty-Nine Steps also has one of these moments, except the couple has the added difficulty of being handcuffed together.)
But I have to say my three favorite moments of the film were the fulcrums around which the movie swung:
1. When she finally gets her proposal, it's public. She looks around at all the expectant faces and says yes, despite the fact that she is having second thoughts about the man.
2. She overhears her fiancee telling her friends that the reason he proposed was to get approval from the coop board. She pulls the fire alarm to clear the room and see what it is her fiancee will take with him in case of a fire.
3. She makes her own very public proposal and her love interest walks out of the room. She assumes she's been rejected and walks out to the cliffs overlooking the ocean ("Jump!" I suggested.) where he catches up with her.
I have always resented the public proposal which seems to be a standard set piece of the romcom. In movies they have this thing called 'meet cute,' which now has been superseded by 'marry cute.' Yes, there is something nice about loving someone so much that they are willing to make an ass of themselves in a very crowded place. But I have always thought of this as an intensely private moment that doesn't really need to be shared with the rest of the world. (There's time for that later.) The unbearable pressure and pretense of walking into a room and making an announcement in front of a group of people...
Well, in Leap Year she returns to Ireland and returns something to the kitchen knowing it will piss her interest off and he will come out and see her sitting in his restaurant. This---in itself---is already cutesy artifice. Then she stands up and makes this grand statement. He walks out of the room. (Seriously, folks, in front of the entire village!) He refuses her public statement and makes it private, which is essential to a film about a woman who has led her life to be about appearances.
Anyway, it is very standard, romcom fare. Essentially inoffensive. You will know whether or not you like this movie without my advice. But even if you aren't a romcom fan I highly recommend seeing:
* Frank Capra's It Happened One Night
* Powell & Pressbergers I Know Where I'm Going (with fantastic b&w phantasmagoric cinematography from German expressionist Erwin Hillier)
* Hitchcock's The Thirty-Nine Steps
Also, there is a strong tradition of romcom's about American going to Ireland for love. This film put me in mind of The Matchmaker a 1997 (remake?) starring Janeane Garafalo as the primary love interest.
Leap Year is about an obsessive compulsively inclined woman who has built herself a 'perfect' life down to the cardiologist she's been dating for four years. She is ready for the ring and invoking a family superstition she 'confirms' on the internet, she sets off for Dublin where he is staying for a medical conference, because apparently Leap Year is the Sadie Hawkins day for proposals.
Fate intervenes in the form of weather and a surly Irish taxi-driver who is surely the love interest in this film. They fight like cats and in their trek across Ireland complete with requisite disasters: dung, mud, missed connections, and puking on each others shoes, they fall in love.
There are few surprises in this film, but there are some really lovely moments, and Amy Adams does sincerity well. I was also touched at how much of her 'fine lines and wrinkles' they chose to include in the film. (Subtly lighting her better on her Irish sojourn than during her her 'perfect' life in the city.) These films are marketed squarely at my demographic, and they argue subtly for the same thing I argue for in my recent manifesto on love. Many of the recent romcom formulas focus less around women unable to find partners, but women who have yet to awake passion in their lives because they are focused on perfection or security.
The dreaded 'pink books' (chic lit) have a similar formula. One explodes the current relationship in preference of something more genuine and passionate. The other features a women who strays only to find that no, she prefers her man.
I think there were a few lovely moments in the film. The seductive storytelling in the castle was a marvelous moment and one of the many moments in the film that refers to one of my favorite classic films: I Know Where I'm Going about a woman set to marry an industrialist during wartime until fate in the form of the weather and a local laird on leave. One of the wise things about that film is that they never actually show her originally intended groom. He is abstracted into the entire 'Consolidated Chemical Company' about which she dreams of marrying on the train.
And there is a reference to the Clark Gable & Claudette Colbert classic It Happened One Night when the couple unexpectedly has to spend the night together, though Leap Year doesn't manage anything quite so seductive as that sheet. (Hitchclock's thriller The Thirty-Nine Steps also has one of these moments, except the couple has the added difficulty of being handcuffed together.)
But I have to say my three favorite moments of the film were the fulcrums around which the movie swung:
1. When she finally gets her proposal, it's public. She looks around at all the expectant faces and says yes, despite the fact that she is having second thoughts about the man.
2. She overhears her fiancee telling her friends that the reason he proposed was to get approval from the coop board. She pulls the fire alarm to clear the room and see what it is her fiancee will take with him in case of a fire.
3. She makes her own very public proposal and her love interest walks out of the room. She assumes she's been rejected and walks out to the cliffs overlooking the ocean ("Jump!" I suggested.) where he catches up with her.
I have always resented the public proposal which seems to be a standard set piece of the romcom. In movies they have this thing called 'meet cute,' which now has been superseded by 'marry cute.' Yes, there is something nice about loving someone so much that they are willing to make an ass of themselves in a very crowded place. But I have always thought of this as an intensely private moment that doesn't really need to be shared with the rest of the world. (There's time for that later.) The unbearable pressure and pretense of walking into a room and making an announcement in front of a group of people...
Well, in Leap Year she returns to Ireland and returns something to the kitchen knowing it will piss her interest off and he will come out and see her sitting in his restaurant. This---in itself---is already cutesy artifice. Then she stands up and makes this grand statement. He walks out of the room. (Seriously, folks, in front of the entire village!) He refuses her public statement and makes it private, which is essential to a film about a woman who has led her life to be about appearances.
Anyway, it is very standard, romcom fare. Essentially inoffensive. You will know whether or not you like this movie without my advice. But even if you aren't a romcom fan I highly recommend seeing:
* Frank Capra's It Happened One Night
* Powell & Pressbergers I Know Where I'm Going (with fantastic b&w phantasmagoric cinematography from German expressionist Erwin Hillier)
* Hitchcock's The Thirty-Nine Steps
Also, there is a strong tradition of romcom's about American going to Ireland for love. This film put me in mind of The Matchmaker a 1997 (remake?) starring Janeane Garafalo as the primary love interest.