Film

It ought to tell you a lot about this romantic comedy that they picked Englishman Matthew Goode to play an Irishman. Eh, Irish, English, who can tell them apart?… At least the film plays to Goode’s strength, which is his roguish charm. As for Amy Adams, the script brings out the worst in her; she plays yet another of those driven professional women who need to loosen up, the kind who populate romantic comedies. Adams does all the frazzled mannerisms that grated so thoroughly in Julie & Julia and delivers her lines in a singsong that screams “I’m doing comedy here, folks!”

Planning a Sadie Hawkins–style marriage proposal based on a supposed Irish leap-year tradition, she follows her boyfriend (Scott, phoning in the “wrong guy” role) to Ireland, where he’s at a business conference in Dublin. Bad weather deposits her in a tiny town on the other side of the country, and she hires local pub owner Goode to drive her to the big city. He finds her annoying. She dithers and whines. They have to share a room at a B&B. You get the picture. The comedy isn’t funny (and it’s often pretty misogynistic) and the romance isn’t very romantic. You need at least one of those for a rom-com, don’t you think?