Associated Press

Amy Adams and Matthew Goode are shown in a scene from "Leap Year."

Poor Anna. She yearns to be engaged but her cardiologist boyfriend of four years hasn't proposed. No matter, says her dad; in Ireland, it's permissible for the woman to pop the question so long as she does it on Feb. 29.

Hmm, Anna muses that night. Jeremy, the laggard swain, is in Dublin for a convention of heart docs. It's Leap Year. Why not?

Faster than you can say shillelagh shimelagh, she's winging from Boston to the Emerald Isle with matrimony on her mind.

Thus the premise from which "Leap Year" leaps.

Trouble arrives in the form of foul weather. It forces Anna to deplane in Wales and make her way to Dublin as best she can. That means hiring a driver. Named Declan, he's young, hunky, single and maddeningly derisive of his employer's mission.

Think you know where this is going?

Many miles and comic mishaps later, the fractious companions arrive in Dublin and Anna must choose between Jeremy and Declan, with whom she just might by then have fallen in love.

Amy Adams brings her usual radiance to the role of Anna. She has the acting chops to complement the camera's love affair with her face, thankfully, and they're deployed to full effect in "Leap Year."

She receives able support from Adam Scott as the clueless boyfriend, Matthew Goode as Declan, John Lithgow (in one brief scene) as her father, and a clutch of colorful extras.

Cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel makes stunning use of the cliffs, countryside and mountain vistas of Wales and Ireland. And the script by Deborah Kaplan and Harry Elfont manages a couple of nice twists at the end.

Its assets don't quite offset "Leap Year's" low surprise quotient, but they soften it considerably. You've got a laugh or two here, an unexpected twist there, exquisite scenery and Amy Adams in a beguiling romance.

The advice from here is to sit back and enjoy the ride. Trips don't always need surprise endings to be fun.