Among the dozens of formulaic chick flicks Murray has forced me to watch, there seems to be a rather popular sub-genre that I have affectionately dubbed 'The Travelogue Rom-Com'. 'Leap Year' may well be the perfect example.
The plot is identical to nearly every other romantic comedy where the heroine has her sights set on some seemingly perfect but dull fellow, then finds herself falling for some obnoxious but charming lout instead. Jane Austin wrote a few of these. So did Shakespeare.
The Travelogue version simply takes these standard characters and arbitrarily ships them off to an exotic locale, usually in the Mediterranean, thus adding a 'fish out of water' element to liven things up a bit.
'Leap Year' flawlessly incorporates every element of this formula without offering a single surprise or twist. However, it does have the great advantage of being set in Ireland and thus giving us a tall, scruffy, utterly charming Irish lout to root for.
That's good enough for me. Three stars out of five.
(This will be my last review until after the October 25th election. Apparently critiquing films in the local paper once a month gives me 'unfair exposure'. Just as well - it seems that Murray and I really are starting to share taste in movies.)
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