Simon Beaufoy, the Oscar-nominated writer of The Full Monty and Slumdog Millionaire, has bagged his first high-profile gig since the release of the Danny Boyle film: he’s been tapped to write a new draft of the Amy Adams romantic comedy, Leap Year.
Regular readers may recall that we’ve been highly cynical about Leap Year since it was first announced – not because of Adams, who’s excellent, and not because of the high-concept (Adams travels to Ireland to propose to her boyfriend on Feb. 29, a la the ancient tradition, only for things to go hilariously wrong), but because of its writers, Deb Kaplan and Harry Elfont, the duo who wrote the unspeakably bad Made Of Honour, Surviving Christmas and, just for bad measure, The Flintstones: Viva Rock Vegas.
Given the hideous Scottish stereotypes they inflicted upon us with Made Of Honour (a film which features an actual caber-tossing competition), we imagined that **Leap Year **might have been crammed with more faux Oirishness than your average theme pub, begorrah.
Thankfully, though, Beaufoy has been brought in to rewrite their original script, presumably at the behest of director Anand Tucker, who came onto the project in November. It’s been disclosed that Beaufoy has been brought on for his affinity for regional accents, so he has, and we’re a lot more optimistic about his ability to write authentic Oirish dialogue.
In a way, Beaufoy’s hiring is somewhat surprising – the Brit writer has determinedly avoided anything that could even vaguely be considered Hollywood since he shot to fame with The Full Monty. But we can’t begrudge him a big payday and, if he can make **Leap Year **even vaguely bearable, we’ll buy him a pint of Guinness, so we will, and slap him on the back as a horse gallops down our street in slow-motion, the big bollix.