When my friends told me that a movie will never do well out of their established medium (in which this case it is a novella), I did not believe them until I watched Harry Potter. The Leap Years is no exception. It was a good attempt however, and I generally enjoyed the film. But I believe there is potential for the film to do so much better.
The Leap Years is base upon Catherine Lim’s Leap of Love. It was supposed to be release on late-2005 but was eventually pushed to 29 February 2008. It tells the story of Li-Ann, over an unbelievable 16 years of waiting for her “blue and blurry” other half.
I am not sure how a non-Singaporean will react upon watching this movie, especially since it is a unusual mix of dialect & English, local religion and western custom, and a love story that last for such a long time. It will probably make much more sense if the story was in written words rather than on the silver screen.
Music-wise, it makes me feel that the director couldn’t make up his mind whether to use music or song. There was a number of scene where the songs by local singer Corrinne May does not match. Perhaps it was the director’s way of promoting local music, but at the extend of suffering his movie. The music on the other hand, works pretty well, although more refinement could be done to create a bigger impact on the audiences.
Story-wise, the production team have took Leap of Love and expend on it. As the present time scene was not originally in the novella. The expansion works generally well, although it was confusing at the beginning. The story did explore a bit into the life of typical woman nowadays, but I was glad the supporting character did not steal the spotlight away.
The story itself is quite good, but the delivery of the film still felt as if there are rough edges on it. At least, it is not one of those newer Jack Neo’s movie. It is a brilliant movie to catch if you are one of those naive fairytale believers (no pun intended). I see this movie as a good stepping stone that Singapore will produce even more greater English movies aim at the mass audiences.
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