A day for desperate women. Successful Boston real estate stager Anna Brady (Amy Adams) is frustrated that her long term boyfriend cardiologist Jeremy Sloane (Adam Scott) still has not proposed to her after four years. She decides to travel from to Dublin to propose to him on February 29, Leap Day, while he is attending a conference. Anna plans to invoke an Irish tradition, when a woman may propose to a man on leap day. During the flight, a storm diverts the plane to Cardiff in Wales. Anna hires a boat to take her west across the Irish Sea to Cork. The severity of the storm results in her being put ashore at a small seaside village of Dingle. Anna requests surly Irish innkeeper Declan O’Callaghan (Matthew Goode) to give her a lift to Dublin. At first he refuses, but as his tavern is threatened with foreclosure, he agrees to drive her for 500 euros. Along the way, he mocks her belief in a leap year tradition of women proposing to men. A herd of cows blocks the road. Anna steps in cow dung while attempting to move the animals and tries to clean her shoes while leaning on Declan’s car, which causes it to roll downhill into a stream. Continuing on foot, Anna flags down a van with three travellers who offer her a lift. Ignoring Declan’s warning, Anna hands them her luggage. They drive off without her. Anna and Declan make their way on foot to a roadside pub, where they find the thieves going through Anna’s luggage. Declan fights them and retrieves Anna’s bag. While waiting for a train in Tipperary, they ask each other what they would grab if their homes were on fire and they had only 60 seconds to flee. They lose track of time and miss the train. They are forced to stay at a B&B where they pretend to be married so that their conservative hosts will allow them to stay. During dinner, when the other couples kiss to show their love for each other, Anna and Declan are forced to kiss as well … Why don’t you try and stop trying to control everything in the known universe? The screenplay by Deborah Kaplan & Harry Elfont unearths a previously unknown Oirish custom called ‘Bachelor’s Day’ throwing together two mismatched romantic protagonists into a tiny car (of a marque last seen in Ireland maybe forty years ago) and hurtling them around the country in a screwball road movie that hits more posts than goals in terms of plausibility or indeed verisimilitude. A cast of redoubtable local performers including Pat Laffan, Alan Devlin, Ian McElhinney and Dominique McElligott do their best with mindless if inoffensive comedy (if you’re not Irish) and the scenery as shot by Newton Thomas Sigel is curiously muddy throughout. Made variously in Counties Wicklow, Dublin, Mayo Galway and Kildare, filming took place in and around the Aran Islands (Caragh’s Inn in Kilmurvey on Inishmore) and Dun Aonghasa Cliffs, Connemara, Temple Bar, Georgian Dublin, the Rock of Dunamase in County Laois, Enniskerry and Glendalough National Park in Wicklow, Carton House Hotel in County Kildare and Olaf Street in Waterford City. A romcom that never rises above the sum of its parts but certainly provides a lens into the tourist view of the island. It’s so bad it’s enjoyable and has become a major cult. This eventually bounces along with a fun soundtrack of popular songs in a score by Randy Edelman. Directed by Anand Tucker. You just surprised me. You keep doing that
mondomovies 