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hels-dunleavy
I also write scripts none of which have been made and help my partner make films.
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Leap Year (2010)
If you like very simple love stories with no subplots, this is enjoyable.
This film sticks to the basic outline done so many times before: Girl going somewhere geographically, ends up travelling with a guy totally different from her. They're chalk and cheese and initially don't like each other. He thinks she's silly or vapid, she thinks he's arrogant, judgemental, rude. Soon they start to enjoy the exotic attractiveness of some of their differences and fall in love. Need for one character to completely change life plans to choose to be together optional, same with culture shock. And there's pretty much nothing else going on. The script is poor, there are no subplots, nothing is including that isn't later called back to explain the central plot, so it feels pretty anaemic and underdeveloped, the picture is not painted with rewarding detail. It feels like the writers didn't put any effort in at all, what with there being nothing unique about the progression towards falling in love, and even the basics of the geography and general knowledge hasn't been researched. The leap year thing is presented as if it's only done in Ireland and isn't well known, really not true. And the obstacle of where the main character ends up in Ireland and from which she needs to get to Dublin suggests nobody making this film thought it a good idea to check google maps. Amy Adams can be a great actress but here she has nothing to do so does practically nothing with the role. Goode is attractive and convincing with his rugged Irishman in his acting even if the accent wavers. Adam Scott is so underused he could be replaced with an Elmo and it wouldn't matter. Everything in between is recycled from other films, not surprising since most of it is just clichés about what it's like in the countryside, such as cows blocking roads, buses and trains are almost an abstract concept etc. Films regurgitating this basic premise should always try to do something new with it, this one goes in the opposite direction by being so simple it could have been a silent movie.
Hello, Friend (2003)
Brilliant.
This short is simply brilliant. A tight little satire that manages to muse on the declining standards of customer services and our acceptance of such, our perverted relationship to product hype and pervasiveness in our lives at the same time as poking fun at both reasonable and paranoid assessment of our vulnerability to malevolent corporations and crossing that line into complete dependency.
(Mild Spoiler here)Probably the most delightful touch of all might not have been predicted - the computer equipment at the centre is intentionally ridiculous but the story doesn't bother referencing the cutting edge in computers themselves at all, instead focussing on complaint correspondence. This has the added benefit of making it still watchable today. Referencing what phones or laptops or real companies were considered cutting edge at the time would have aged it straight away and their absence does the opposite.
What makes the film is the tone, balancing the silly drama and the distancing style. As the previous review suggests some people consider the start to be the best bit but the rest not making the most of the potential of the idea. Personally I take it that everything in it (right down to the super low quality effects in the middle) is deliberate and only taken as far as needs to be. The nuanced touches, some completely daft, some so subtle they initially don't seem out of place at all, are brilliant. And added to that it's delightful viewing for anyone who loves spotting the incestuousness of British comedy casting, which might be considered unusual for a short if this were not Linehan's baby.