The women's liberation movement in the universe of film consists of empowering women economically; they all get fabulous jobs in fashion or real estate or owning uncommonly successful restaurants. The liberation stops however once they have found a man. Such is the case of the new romantic comedy “Leap Year” starring the plucky Amy Adams.
Adams stars in “Leap Year” as Anna, whose job is setting up apartments for sale. She doesn't sell the apartments; she merely dresses them for sale and makes fabulous amounts of money doing it. In a rare twist, Anna has already met a man, Jeremy (Adam Scott), who shares her love of status symbols and just the right apartment.
Anna and Jeremy have been together four years and just before he leaves for Ireland on a business trip Anna gets in her head that he is finally going to propose to her, so convinced that she and a friend actually practice being surprised when he asks. No surprise to anyone who’s seen the film's trailer, Jeremy doesn't ask and Anna is briefly devastated.
After Jeremy's plan is hatched, Anna will fly to Ireland just in time for Leap Day, February 29th, a day in Irish tradition when a woman can ask a man to marry her. Now, the liberated woman of today might ask why a holiday is needed for a woman to ask a man to marry her. The makers of “Leap Year” ladies are unconcerned with such questions.
The leap day thing is merely a device to propel Anna on a madcap dash to Dublin. First her plane is diverted to Scotland then she gets stranded in an Irish village called Dingle where she seeks a ride from one of the locals. The only driver available is also the local pub and hotelier, Declan (Matthew Goode).
Surprise, surprise, Anna and Declan immediately choose to dislike each other. She's a shrewish, entitled bitch and he's easygoing, handsome charmer with a secret reason for not trusting women. If your eyes weren't rolling through the back of your head as you read that you have more self control than I.
So, off they go on a trip across the Irish countryside arguing and uh-oh falling in love with all of the requisite dopey rom-com (romantic comedies) roadblocks checked off like a shopping list at a cliché outlet. No surprise then to learn, the script comes from the makers of “Made of Honor” and “Josie and the Pussycats.”
We all know how this will end, anyone who’s seen the trailer for “Leap Year” knows how it will end. It's a romantic comedy and experience tells us that it is the journey and not the destination when it comes to the modern rom-com. Sadly, the journey in “Leap Year” is mostly tedious.
I say mostly tedious because along the way, though all the predictable beats are there, somehow a few grace notes sneak in. A script polish by Oscar winner Simon Beaufoy likely brought the scene where Anna and Declan clash at a wedding and then share a romantic walk in Dublin before she meets up with Jeremy.
These few good scenes however cannot make up for the inept series of clichés that precede them. Add to that the anti-feminist vibe of the whole thing. In the end, after all of the predictable crap plays out Anna throws everything away, the job she loved, the things she worked hard for just so that she can live the life of a doting wife. Yes, she's in love but why does that require her to give up all that she was.
“Leap Year” is yet another movie that affirms that all that really matters to women is getting married and adapting her life to the traditional role of the wife set forth by years of oppression. Choosing to be a wife and mother is as feminist as getting into the rat race but Anna giving up herself to adapt to what is expected of her is as anti-feminist a message as any movie of the past decades.
I realize that I am not supposed to care. I get that the filmmakers don't want to talk about this but the ignorance of these facts is a plague that infects far too many modern so-called romances. “Leap Year” is just the latest symptom of said plague.
BYLINE:
Sean Patrick Kernan is a film critic. Check him out at: http://www.myspace.com/number1ramjamfan.
2 comments:
Why is it always such a bad thing that a woman genuinely would want to have a husband that she loves and children to take care of? It may be anti-feminist, and as a woman, I of course recognize the good things that the feminist movement has done. But if a woman wants to give up a career to be a mother, it's unfair to judge that as a negative thing.
In fact, it is a negative by-product of the feminist movement that women feel that they MUST be independent from men and they MUST be super chic and sophisticated on their own, causing pressures on young girls who SURPRISE, don't actually care about money or having jobs in the fashion world.Distancing ourselves from men doesn't bring the equality that feminism apparently strives for.
Some of us really do just want to be loved and give love, and at the root of it, it's wrong on so many levels to dismiss that as being the quality of a silly, oppressed female.
PS But other than that, I pretty much agree with the review. Except that I hope we all realize that one cannot expect much else from a romantic comedy. And it is a very nice thought, isn't it? That we can go to a foreign country and fall in love completely and wholly with a handsome stranger who makes us want to give up everything in the span of three days? Unrealistic and fanciful, sure, but definitely what a movie is supposed to do.
Healthy samples are giving free winter samples for a limited time at http://bit.ly/5dxDmw
Post a Comment