Leap Year (2010)

January 16, 2010

If a fire were to burn your home quickly, what would you take with you in 60 seconds? This is the question that drives Anna (Amy Adams) to ponder her superficial life as a real estate stager in Boston, involved with a cardiologist, Jeremy (Adam Scott), four years running and no marriage proposal in sight.

Superficial might be too quick a word to judge her with. Anna stages not just empty apartments so they sell quickly, but also her life to appear coiffed when really inside she’s driven by the fear of guessing wrong. She learned to protect herself against uncertainty while navigating as a youth through her father’s hapless business decisions. Her father was always living by the phrase, “Oh well, everything will just work out.”

So, she evolves intro a successful control queen who treats friends and her clueless boyfriend with needy honesty. Without them by her side, she might feel like losing control and this means she maintains the status quo. Until one day, ironically, her father arrives late to a seedy bar just so they can spend some time together and reminds his daughter of Grandma Jane asking her future husband to marry her–inspired by Irish tradition that as the leap year arrives every fourth year on February 29, women have the chance to pop the question. And so Anna flops herself on a plane to find her man–Jeremy, who traveled to Ireland for a conference.

Problem is she finds the wrong one in Declan (Matthew Goode), a jaded fellow who owns and now just bartends a classic Irish pub because his chef aspirations disappeared when his girlfriend left with his business partner. In walks Anna to this moody place looking for a taxi to escort her to Dublin where her fiance awaits. One storm already downed her airplane and then a fisherman-boat-ride-for-hire. She is stranded. And so these two pair up since Declan needs to earn the exuberant taxi fare she is offering to pay an old kitchen equipment bill the local thug intends to collect on.

The storyline does not woe you in complexity, but I will say this good-old fashioned predictable romantic-comedy felt wonderful to watch. Why? Because for the $8.75 matinee price, you could watch an uptight urban woman fall in love–with the incredible nature around her on the Aran Islands (three small ones off the coast of Ireland). We see a narrow road where only one Mini car fits and that’s good enough because probably one car travels down the lane in an hour. Green hills unfold one after the other. Stunning coastal sunsets over those amazing Irish cliffs, romance the viewer entirely. In one scene, Anna stands with her potential beau and stares out from the castle where they climbed up to and witnesses a stunning hillside rolling forever green and into the ocean view.

Also, Irish weather notoriously changes in a blink, so Anna experiences sudden hail that drives them both inside to a church wedding. Or rain storms from no where drench her quickly. Under the influence of nature’s colors and weather, Anna’s tightly controlled emotions finally start to loosen. Yes, she agrees to marry the conservative Jeremy and return home to Boston, where they have been accepted into a prestigious by-invitation-only condominium.

But at their party to show off the new digs, Anna learns through Jeremy’s bragging that he asked her to marry him because that was the final clincher to receive the green light on the apartment. A calculated marriage proposal for sure. So, she pulls the fire alarm. And while everyone scrambles out, her fiance grabs all the material goodies he can: camcorder, lap top, i-phone, and more.

In contrast, Anna simply disappears and winds up on a plane back to a small Irish village. She sits at a table in the now bustling dining room of Declan’s pub, and when he appears, she makes a proposal. She asks him if he would like to join her in making no plans together. She has changed enough to trust uncertainty. The moment is sweet, and I believe–real. We plan and plan and plan and plan–even the spark of romance. How can you plan and control those moments?

This is a gushy film that doesn’t completely falsely sugar-coat Hollywood style an early romance. Declan has been burned and so is wise to life. He appreciates cooking good food from the bounty of a garden outside his front door, and he shares this slow-food appreciation with Anna. In turn, she starts to slow down too. The beautiful Irish nature surrounding them both creates a thoughtful presence for them to open up and take new emotional risks.

He questions Anna’s motive to ask Jeremy to marry her; he laughs at her that if anyone wished to marry anyone that after four years the question would already have been asked since it’s the most important one to ask in a lifetime. In his questioning of Anna, she can finally start to see herself. Yet the Irish environment stands as a third character to open up their romance as they turn to simple beauty blanketing them as a way to heal and change, so they can finally join each other after she says yes to his marriage proposal. See? Didn’t take lucky leap year magic at all.

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Playing for Real

January 16, 2010

I traveled to the fourth floor at the gym today-usually the second floor is as high as I go because the sauna is there. Up here, though, is a beautiful brand new gym where impromptu basketball games happen all the time. Mostly the big guys mix it up, but if I wish an invitation is extended. Grabbing a random basketball rolling around, today I just took some practice shots at an empty basket. Felt so damn good to move on the court. I love playing basketball.

While growing up, my older brother would practice for hours on the outdoor concrete court just across the street from our house. We all had our go-to outlets that youth need to cloister themselves independently away from the family. Younger bro’ discovered surfing when he was 13-years-old and I launched into reading. But I also learned basketball, too.

At first I was truly crappy. My dribbling was so weak everyone stole the ball from me. I could barely shoot. And passes were always intercepted. That is, I played like a girl. Thankfully, while learning I played against boys. Looking back I realize that’s how I got so good. Ooops…those bragging rights are more for you to assert, yet I’ll say that during most playing time, I can at least create flow on the court–a pass here, a steal there, and sink a bucket or two.

During elementary school, my energy on the court was feisty and I remember a referee giving me a technical foul–in fifth grade. This is when a player throws such a temper tantrum that the other team gets to shoot a free throw as a penalty. Angry is what you could call me. But I played outdoors all the time and over the years it’s true that finally I got game.

Still, I was absolutely surprised when in eighth grade I made varsity–a team level reserved for juniors and seniors in high school. Our family moved in 1978 to Bangkok, Thailand, where all three of us kids attended the International School of Bangkok. Startled that I made the basketball team, I was even more taken aback when we traveled to Singapore and Hong Kong for tournaments. What a blast we had on that team and the older players resented but also took care of me.

I can still hear my older brother bouncing the basketball outside on the driveway pavement, the sound echoing inside to the living room. That was the year John Travolta’s smash hit film “Saturday Night Fever” came out and the Bee Gees were alive–or, at least they titled one of their song hits, “Staying Alive.” A small boom box played these disco tunes while geckos chirped late into the humid night and a basketball kept pounding, pounding. Sometimes older bro’ practiced too much and would find it difficult to play in the actual games. Mostly this happened because of the deceiving Thai heat–relentless, thick, and damp. I remember the only time not sweating was in the shower.

That was a year we would make many diverse friends. Over the years I often recall their names and faces. For example, the current United States Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner was a lanky kid who also played basketball on the same boy’s varsity team as older bro’. Even compared to the diminutive Thai players, Tim was petite. He would often need to circle the key as a point guard rather than mix it up with the big guys down low. I saw his name several months ago and wondered if my memory of this Tim matched the real-guy in finance. One day I watched a youtube clip and within a minute, I knew the two were one and the same. Physical gestures stamp so indelibly on our memories of each other. I recognized his instantly. Similar to how my muscle memory kicked in pronto today when I started shooting hoops. Took no time at all for me to remember how to play.

A friend from that year in Asia found me on Facebook the other day, sending me a note to confirm I was me. Turns out I am. What a delightful surprise to hear so many catching-up life stories from her. We travel so many directions in life that to look way, way back and see the house with the basketball court outside–one in California and another in Thailand–creatively helps to recognize those moments were just as real, too. Foggy behavior doesn’t erase that. When I missed a shot today here in San Francisco and the rim clanked grimly, I could hear the rim on the Bangkok hoop sag, too, even more so, and this familiar sound transported me in time to right now, enjoying the memory and then letting go, so the very present sweaty moment felt like I was playing for real, more real than in a long time.

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