A romantic comedy – girl loves boy, boy loves girl, but a third party gets in the way. Nothing especially surprising; but what is surprising is that it’s directed by Anand Tucker (who directed Hillary and Jackie and produced Girl With the Pearl Earring). It’s Randy Edelman’s first score in a couple of years – since The Mummy 3, which at first seemed like a nice opportunity for him to do something a bit different, but ultimately some of his music was replaced in the film by John Debney. He’s in far safer territory with Leap Year – and it’s an absolutely lovely score. Proper themes (one of which sounds a bit like Georges Delerue), plenty of fun, loads of romance (another theme sounds a bit like Legends of the Fall – and yet another sounds a bit like John Barry) – it really is delightful music. Of course there’s nothing outstandingly original here; it’s just so pleasant.
The film’s set in Ireland, so the Oirish sound which seemed to crop up all over the place in film music in the late 1990s – but which has been mercifully absent for a while – is present on occasion. It’s not all that dominant, but if that sort of thing makes you come out in a rash, beware. This is all so pleasant, nice to listen to, it’s hard to find any real faults with the music at all. Sadly, there is a major fault with the album – it’s a jaw-dropping 75 minutes long. A fluffy romantic comedy score album which is 75 minutes long! For all its good points, there’s no meat on the bone here. With 30 minutes of highlights, this would be the best rom-com score album I’d heard in years and solidly in four-star territory; at 2.5 times that length, it’s extremely hard to imagine anyone ever wanting to listen to it. Such a shame. ***
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