Leap Day Romance: The movie “Leap Year” should be loved and appreciated like other classic romantic comedy movies

When you think of romantic comedy movies, what do you think of? Do you think of the “classic” rom-coms like “When Harry Met Sally,” “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days” or “Love, Actually?” Well let me add one more to your list:

“Leap Year.”

While it’s not known to the public like the boombox scene from “Say Anything,” but with 2024 being a leap year, why not give the movie “Leap Year” a try? You absolutely won’t regret it.

The movie came out in 2010 and follows a woman named Anna, played by Amy Adams, who travels all the way to Ireland to propose to her boyfriend on Leap Day to satisfy an old Irish tradition.

The movie starts off with a very cliché Elle Woods style montage of Anna doing her job staging houses before they are shown by realtors and believing that her boyfriend is going to propose to her later that evening at dinner. Spoiler alert — he doesn’t.

At this point, I was starting to lose hope in the originality of the movie, but I quickly refocused once the Irish accents came into play.

After many tears, Anna remembers an old Irish tradition her father used to tell about her grandmother traveling all the way to Ireland to propose to her boyfriend. In this Irish legend, women can only propose to their boyfriends on Feb. 29 every four years. While I’m all for women proposing to their boyfriends on any of the other 365 days of the year, I was immediately hooked by Anna’s motivation.

Deciding to take her future into her own hands, Anna travels to Dublin to meet her boyfriend while he’s at a cardiology conference — well, at least she tries to.

Before she can do this, she runs into a handsome, Irish stranger Declan, played by Matthew Goode, after her plane is forced to touch down early, due to weather complications. After much reluctance, Declan agrees to drive Anna to Dublin for a hefty amount of money in order to keep his pub from closing down.

I know what you’re thinking, there are already so many Hallmark movie tropes going on — city girl meeting country boy, business on the brink of being shut down, grumpy sunshine, etc. — but stay with me here.

This movie had me laughing out loud at 11 p.m. on a school night while my whole family was sleeping (whoops). The scenes throughout their adventures through Ireland that would be utterly unbearable to watch in a Netflix rom-com were perfectly executed.

For example, the scene where Anna completely trashes an entire hotel room — down to crumbling the walls — just to charge her phone was cringy in a funny way and not a I-want-to-poke-my-eyeballs-out way.

It’s Adams and Goode’s convincing chemistry that makes “Leap Year” stand out from the other cringy rom-coms. Adams’s performance of a cluelessly rich city girl along with Goode’s witty comedic timing — and his Irish accent — truly add the cherry on top to this movie.

In addition, the emotional depth of the movie was tear-jerking. Declan expressed many emotional layers when he opened up to Anna late in the movie about his previous haywire relationships and Anna shared her own troubles with her current relationship. This made their love confessions at the end even more satisfying.

So, if you’re an avid rom-com watcher and want to become so obsessed with Irish accents like me that your parents start despising you when you walk around the house quoting in a mediocre Irish accent “Throw it in the wash. It’ll be grand,” “Leap Year” is a must-add to your movie watch list.