Movie Review: Leap Year (2010)

A numbingly predictable romantic comedy, Leap Year layers cultural stereotypes and travelogue blandness onto a meager premise.

In Boston, real estate stager Anna (Amy Adams) is disappointed when her boyfriend of four years Jeremy (Adam Scott), a cardiologist, fails to propose marriage and heads to a conference in Dublin. Her father Jack (John Lithgow) tells a tall tale about a tradition of Irish women proposing to their men on February 29. She decides to chase after Jeremy and pop the question.

Severe weather interferes and Anna finds herself stranded in the tiny coastal community of Dingle. The local bar owner/taxi driver Declan (Matthew Goode) needs the money and offers to drive her to Dublin for €500. They immediately clash, her desire to control everything rubbing against his laid-back attitude. But with nothing going well on the long trip, sparks of romance eventually emerge.

Written by Harry Elfont and Deborah Kaplan with a conspicuous absence of wit and creativity, Leap Year washes up on the Irish coast like rotten seaweed. Director Anand Tucker mistakes caricature representations for cultural references, and reduces the country to old men debating superstitions and muddy country roads blocked by cows. Some of the scenery is good, but far from sufficient to distract from the overriding sense ineptness.

Into this dross a ridiculous attempt at a romance is inserted, Anna and Declan actually bickering throughout the whole movie, their incessant quarrelling only turning to manufactured affection in the final 15 minutes when the happy ending demands attention. Along the way they endure car trouble, a night at a bed and breakfast where married couples are unwelcome, and uncooperative train schedules. For good measure they gate crash a wedding and proceed to wreck the bride with flying shoes and spilled wine.

Some moments of humour do survive, and Amy Adams heroically battles against an unappealing character and all the contrived surroundings. She is the only thing worth watching, as this Leap Year is one day too long and otherwise woefully short.



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Movie Review: A Single Man (2009)

A psychological drama, A Single Man delves into individual grief caused by immense loss and the deliberate logic of intending to end life.

It's November 1962 in Los Angeles, and middle-aged and gay English Professor George Falconer (Colin Firth) is preparing for what he wants to be the final day of life. Still deeply depressed after the recent death of his long-term partner Jim (Matthew Goode) in a car accident, George intends to tidy up his affairs and shoot himself. In flashbacks he recalls his happier days meeting Jim after the Second World War and settling down in a loving relationship.

Back in the present, after delivering an impassioned lecture George is approached by Kenny (Nicholas Hoult), one of his students, who notices George's fragile mental state and suggests meeting up later for drinks. In the afternoon George encounters Spanish male prostitute Carlos (Jon Kortajarena) and visits his close friend and former lover Charlotte (Julianne Moore), as the clock ticks towards the end.

The directorial debut of Tom Ford, who also co-wrote the script as an adaptation of the Christopher Isherwood book, A Single Man is a stylish and thoughtful study of anguish. But it also suffers from the typical ailment of this particular dramatic subgenre: plodding pacing, a gradual wilting away of energy, and ultimately a scarcity of ideas.

Despite the film's slick early-1960s look and feel and Ford's clever penchant for playing with colour and light, every scene drags out longer than it needs to. Some sequences, including the encounter with Carlos and the pass-bys featuring the idyllic family-next-door (with Ginnifer Goodwin as the cheery housewife), border on irrelevant. Even at just the 100 minutes the film out-stays its welcome by a stretch.

This takes nothing away from Colin Firth, who is in every scene and fully immersed in the impenetrable sadness engulfing George. Firth combines melancholia with anger at a life no longer worth living, and he remains watchable as momentum seeps away from the script. The supporting characters are just that, Jim (in the flashbacks), Charlotte and Kenny defined only as George sees them.

As a study of depression A Single Man focuses on the reasoning that after Jim's shocking death, George cannot find a pathway towards reclaiming any sort of happiness. The glimmers of hope come from the insistence of Kenny and Charlotte that friendships and love may still lie ahead, but cutting through the thicket of mourning will require herculean yet sensitive and persistent efforts.

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Movie Review: Self/less (2015)

A science fiction thriller that emphasizes routine action scenes and gradually discards the science elements, Self/less enjoys its moments but lacks the ambition needed to pursue more original avenues.

Damon Hayes (Ben Kingsley) is a wealthy real estate tycoon operating in New York City. Along with his long-time business partner Martin (Victor Garber), Hayes has a lock on every big deal, and ruthlessly outmanoeuvres his opponents. But Damon is also very sick, close to death, and on very bad terms with his activist daughter Claire (Michelle Dockery). He is placed in contact with the youthful and mysterious Professor Albright (Matthew Goode), who promises Damon eternal life. For a very large fee, Albright can transfer Damon's brain into an artificially created young man's body.

Damon agrees, the procedure seems to go well, and Damon goes through rehab to get used to functioning in the body of a fit man (Ryan Reynolds). He moves to New Orleans to start a new life, befriends Anton (Derek Luke) and starts to enjoy the party privileges of a being very wealthy and eligible man. But troublesome flashes of brain-generated imagery persist, despite Albright prescribing pills to reduce their occurrence. Damon starts to investigate what his brain is trying to tell him, leading to a dangerous surprise about his new body involving grieving widow Claire (Natalie Martinez) and her once very sick daughter.

Self/less is not a cradle of originality. The science fiction themes related to body regeneration, the use of dead victims for nefarious purposes, and memory fragments surviving a supposedly clean slate have been well covered in many other films. Back in 1978, Coma explored the exploitation of human bodies for profit, as did Extreme Measures in 1996. The role of Professor Albright as the genius scientist breaking all moral rules in the name of scientific progress is particularly clichéd, and channels characters like Michael Drucker from the 2000 Schwarzenegger film The 6th Day.

Nevertheless, Self/less is a serviceable movie, delivered with a quality shine by director Tarsem Singh. The opening 30 minutes are more engaging as Damian grapples with his mortality and explores what the dark corners of science can offer. Ben Kingsley brings his unmistakable solemnity to the role of a lonely billionaire with a massive ego, weighing surrender to disease against an expensive leap into an unknown future pregnant with potentially huge returns. His relationship with daughter Claire is underdeveloped but does add a touch of human vulnerability to the character, and provides him with a failure worth remedying should he be afforded more time.

But while the film sets up the opportunity to explore issues such as immortality and the potential for high achievers to use their bonus time either wisely or otherwise, the script (by David and Àlex Pastor) subsequently steers clear of more cerebral undertakings, and settles down in rather familiar thriller territory. The action elements are at least well constructed, Tarsem building tension, deploying relatively rational editing, and using Reynolds' charisma to keep the film reasonably grounded. He even finds a somewhat clever twist for the climax of an otherwise routine car chase shoot-out.

The cast is as average as the material. Reynolds is adequate but is never quite able to project the elderly Damian. Goode cannot do much with Professor Albright other than the stereotype of a scientist convincing himself that his god-like tendencies are all for the betterment of humankind. In contrast Natalie Martinez brings edge and more steeliness than usual to the role of the puzzled widow who suddenly has to confront a new reality. Self/less borrows most of its pieces from other films, but at least makes some of them a bit better.

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