So when I went hunting for some entertainment to help fend off the cold I found sitting in the 'new to weekly' aisle of my local DVD store the romantic comedy, Leap Year.
Being not a fan of predictable plots, corny lines and characters so sweet that your teeth hurt, the romantic comedy genre is usually one I try to avoid. But the blurb on the back caught my interest and I took a risk.
And this time, much to my happy surprise, it came up trumps.
Anna Brady played by the delightful Amy Adams, is a planner that stages apartments for Realtors in Boston, who has been in serious relationship with cardiologist Jeremy (Adam Scott), for four years.
When we meet the couple they have just taken the next step in their relationship, buying an apartment together. Anna believes that this is a pre-cursor to a marriage proposal, only to find her hopes dashed in a typical, yet still humorous small jewellery box assumption.
Deciding to take matters into her own hands she plans to surprise Jeremy at a conference in Dublin on the February 29th, and propose to him utilising an old Irish folklore tradition from the Fifth Century of leap-year proposals by women.
Of course, it is a disaster just waiting to happen.
Luckily for this film it is a disaster that occurs amongst the beautiful Irish countryside and involves the rather prickly, wonderfully sarcastic and financially desperate inn owner Declan (Matthew Goode).
After some financial bribery, that just so happens to perfectly cover his debts, Anna gets Declan to agree to drive her to Dublin, although the trip turns out to be more difficult than either of them bargained for.
And so we have a beautiful woman and a handsome Irish inn owner chasing down a man who obviously isn't ready to propose.
I'll let you join the dots. Of course it ends how all romantic comedies do, exactly how you expected, but at least with Leap Year you have a fantastic amount of fun along the way.
The movie takes a rare and wonderful moral view on marriage, where the focus is on the importance of marriage in a modern world that has taken commitment to mean owning a house or having children together before taking vows in front of God, family and friends.
We have a couple of characters who only have married couples stay, and even a wedding service conducted by a Christian pastor, and there isn't a soul around to call them old fashioned or their morals outdated.
The language is almost as clean as it can get and there are no depicted or implied sex scenes, although there is a very brief scene where Anna is behind a semi-transparent shower curtain.
We are in Ireland and with an owner of an Irish inn so there is some drinking shown throughout the movie, although heavy drinking is shown to have its digestive consequences.
All in all I give Leap Year 4 out of 5 stars
LanguageLight
ViolenceLight
GoreNone
Sexual referencesLight
DrugsLight
Fantasy themesNone