Cast: Amy Adams, Matthew Goode, Jeremy Scott

Director: Anand Tucker

Screenwriters: Deborah Kaplan, Harry Elfont

The rom-com is a tough genre to crack. For every When Harry Met Sally or Pretty Woman, there are a hundred pretenders waiting in the wings, films that appear to have all the required ingredients but which fail to satisfy when they’re cooked together. Leap Year, from director Anand Tucker (Red Riding) hits all the right notes though.

The main hurdle facing rom-coms is that, as a genre, they’re fairly formulaic and predictable – boy meets girl, girl hates boy, then boy and girl love each other for ever after – and in this respect Leap Year is no different. Anna (Adams) is a well to do Boston girl who decides to take advantage of the leap year custom in which  a girl can do the proposing and jets sets to Ireland in pursuit of her man, Jeremy (Scott), to pop the question. Only things don’t go as planned and, after torrential weather steers her plane off course, she’s forced to seek help from local barman Declan (Goode) to help her in her cross-country nuptial-seeking jaunt, the plan predictably going more than a little awry.

It’s a journey through a picture postcard impression of Ireland full of clichés to the extent you half expect a leprechaun to pop out and offer the damstel in distress help, and these stereotypes will grate with many but the recurring themes of an unreliable transport system will also bring a wry smile from audiences this side of the pond. Leap Year, though, manages to avoid coming unstuck by this due to the central pairing of Adams and Goode, she ensuring that spoilt, city girl Anna never grates and he that Declan summons enough rugged charm swoop the girl off her feet. There are a couple of missteps (a kitchen scene in a B & B our duo are forced to stay the night in takes the clichés too far with a intensely creepy Italian couple), but Tucker ensures that Adams and Goode keep it all in focus.

By Alasdair Morton

Leap Year is out now courtesy of Optimum Releasing