Celebrity Brow Barometer: Amy Adams

Leap Year vs. The Master

Welcome back to the Monday edition of Uncultured. This week, I’m launching a new series, Celebrity Brow Barometer.

Each issue, I revisit the highest and lowest-brow work of Hollywood’s most esteemed actors and decide things like which of their characters would make a better maid of honor, which movies got unfairly slandered by the world’s Anton Egos, and if some of society’s most lauded films are actually so boring that you’ll start watching TikTok chiropractor vids on a second screen.

Today, we’re taking a look at the works of Oscar nominee Amy Adams.

After a slew of bit parts on shows like The West Wing and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Amy Adams’ first major break came in her late twenties, with a love interest role in the 2002 Spielberg film Catch Me If You Can.

She proved commercial viability with her starring role in the family musical Enchanted, and has been nominated for a whopping six Academy Awards, from a con-woman in American Hustle to Lynne Cheney in Vice.

For the purposes of today, we’ll be taking a look at her work in the romantic comedy Leap Year (2010) contrasted with the Paul Thomas Anderson drama The Master (2012).

**Please note** the following contains spoilers.

The gist: Anal Anna (Amy Adams) has constructed a picture-perfect life in Boston, but there’s one problem — her cardiologist fiancée (Adam Scott) still won’t pull the trigger and propose already.

Drawing inspiration from her heritage, Anna decides to take advantage of a little loophole: on Leap Day, women can propose to men in Ireland.

Notable review: “If a worse film is released this year I'll eat my own weight in cuddly leprechauns.” — Donald Clarke, The Irish Times

The rigamarole: Here’s my issue with this movie. The whole time that the viewer is meant to be seeing that Anna’s boyfriend Jeremy isn’t right for her, which is the foundation of the rest of the plot, I am just getting more and more turned on by him.

They work to establish his problems early on: first, at the couple’s anniversary dinner, and Jeremy gives Anna a pair of diamond earrings that are probably worth more than every item in my apartment, but she’s sad because she wanted a rock. Check number one, I’m in.

At the same dinner, he has to take a call to help walk a colleague through what is probably a life-saving heart procedure, or something. She says rude, I say HOT. If Anna doesn’t want him, I will happily take him off her hands — gifts and emotional unavailability are my love language. Please ignore me.

Anyway, Jeremy has a conference in Dublin, and Anna decides she’ll meet him there to execute her pseudo-feminist female proposal scheme. But her plane has an emergency landing in Wales, meaning she’ll have to find alternative transport and fast if she wants to get there in time.

Lo and behold, the gruff bartender at the inn she stumbles into is moody and smoldering. And naturally, he not only runs an inn and a bar, but is also the only taxi driver in the land, and he’ll take her to Dublin for 500 Euros.

You can’t really say that what happens next is a comedy of errors because none of it is funny, but for the rest of the film, Anna and her cabbie Declan (Matthew Goode) struggle through an arduous journey where everything that can go wrong does go wrong, thus facilitating their enemies to lovers storyline.

What works: For the first ten minutes of this movie, we get hit with cameo after cameo. Adam Scott - amazing! John Lithgow - too famous for this thankless scene at poorly constructed “Boston” sports bar! Kaitlin Olson - she just makes everything better!

None of these character actors are properly utilized, but they serve as a welcome distraction from Anna’s montage of insufferableness.

What doesn’t: This screenplay was 100% lifted from a middle school girl’s Wattpad account. There’s one scene where Anna and Declan are forced to share a bed, and another when they’re forced to kiss.

But what bumped me the most was why, after Declan’s car breaks down early in their journey, he continues to accompany Anna on her multi-day trek and why she agrees she’ll still pay him FIVE HUNDRED EUROS for his “services” (??). It’s not like there’s a language barrier or that they’re in a rough part of town. He’s been rendered obsolete!

Why would you want some bitter barkeep who made fun of your Louis Vuitton suitcase taking the bus with you and charging you for it? You can take the bus by yourself! I’d rather pop in my AirPods and listen to Normal Gossip in peace.

ADHD Monitor: I have to give this an 8.5 on the ADHD scale. I paused the movie multiple times to take breaks or look at my phone. There was one point, around 30 minutes in when Anna starts trying to herd cows from the road, that I strongly considered killing some zombies on my Switch but pushed through.

The gist: When WWII ends, a perverted veteran (Joaquin Phoenix) who seeks purpose and belonging finds himself intertwined in a mysterious cult, led by the domineering Lancaster Dodd (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and his Claire Underwood-y wife, Peggy (Amy Adams).

Notable review: “This is a glorious movie, an omnivorous, many-coloured satire on the chameleon-hued carnivores of our souls.” — Nigel Andrews, The Financial Times

The rigamarole: The movie starts off with what I guess you could call a bang, opening with a wartime Joaquin Phoenix pretending to f*ck a woman made of sand and then identifying every ink blot in a Rorschach test as a different variation of a pussy.

I didn’t even know that the word pussy dated back to the 1940s. I guess that’s ignorant of me, but I assumed they said something cuter or more old-timey back then, like jitterbox.

Anyway, after the war ends, Freddie goes postal at his mall photographer job (which was honestly a great gig — it was a fancy mall like Bergdorfs and he was shacking up with a shop girl who was way out of his league) and flees onto a nearby ship, which ends up belonging to the Dodd family. Luckily for Freddie, Lancaster Dodd has taken a liking to Freddie’s paint thinner Moonshine, and gives him a job on the boat in exchange for an unlimited supply. A promising start to any new relationship.

Dodd, who is the leader of a vague movement called “The Cause,” describes himself as a doctor, philosopher, physicist, and — above all — a man. This struck me as akin to a 20th century Instagram bio, where you’re like: CEO. Disruptor. Dad. and then link out to your “New York Times Best-Seller” which spent one week at the top of the self-help e-book category.

As Freddie becomes increasingly devoted to the family, he also becomes more erratic, getting physical with anyone who challenges Dodd’s word during the his propaganda tour through the east coast. [Side note: watching this the same week as I watched Swarm, Donald Glover’s new show about a murderous Beyonce Stan, had me half-expecting Freddie to ask the skeptics “who’s your favorite artist?” before slamming them into the wall.]

Freddie’s behavior draws concern from the rest of Dodd’s cohort, but rather than set him loose, Dodd and Peggy decide to use their Scientology tactics to break him mentally, so he’ll be incapable of causing any damage to the family. This includes my favorite sequence of the whole film, where Freddie is forced to run between a wall and a window with his eyes closed for hours while the rest of the house eats lunch on the patio, as well as a bizarre scene where Peggy reads him explicit pornography with Wednesday Adams-level eye contact.

Now that he’s been programmed out of his mind, Freddie must decide if he wants to stay in the comforting grip of the Dodds or live untethered to a master.

What works: I was a little hesitant about watching this because I’m rarely into period pieces, but I was convinced by the mention of a cult. I’ll pretty much engage with anything that has to do with cults — I even once signed up for a course in college because I thought it was about cults, but then I dropped it midway through the first seminar when I learned that really it was about “culture” and the registrar had chopped off the second half of the word.

To be honest, the cult stuff was kind of mid, but when you have a cast as stacked as this one, of course the performances are going to be first-rate.

What doesn’t: Unfortunately, I must concede that I am too dumb and prole for this movie. It’s clearly a film for intellectuals, and it made me feel like Roman Roy after Logan tells the kids he loves them, but they just aren’t “serious people.”

Having just made a Succession reference, I can assure you that I am generally on-board with media that centers around unlikeable people, but for some reason I couldn’t attach myself to anything or anyone in The Master, except maybe Laura Dern, which goes without saying.

Plus, you cast Amy Adams, Jesse Plemmons, and Rami Malek and give them like, fifty lines of dialogue combined??? A waste, one might say?? I was shocked that Amy Adams was nominated for Oscar for this, not because she wasn’t good, but because she was barely in the movie. But I guess that was the power back then of a Weinstein production. . .

ADHD Monitor: I did better with The Master than Leap Year — I’ll give it a 6 on the ADHD scale. I did pick up a FaceTime at one point and paused around 90 minutes in to get some Triscuits.

I spent the last twenty or so minutes on the floor in front of the TV doing pilates exercises, but it was a long movie and it’s healthy to stretch.

Now it’s time to make like a misogynist and pit these women against each other.

Who would make a better emergency contact? Definitely Anna. She’s the type of person who always has an extra tampon in her purse for the girls and knows the best route to Mass General during rush hour. When she got to the hospital, she’d interrogate and/or threaten the doctors the way Kim Kardashian did when Kris was getting hip surgery and all but told the surgeon that if he messed up, he’d never see his kids again.

Whose wedding would I rather be a bridesmaid for? Definitely Peggy! As much as I’d love to hang out with Kaitlin Olson, the bridal group chat would be hella tense, with snippy voice memos from Anna haunting your dreams. Peggy would be so preoccupied with The Cause that she wouldn’t care if you wanted to wear a cap-sleeve dress instead of a halter because it’s more flattering for your personal figure.

Who would I make international travel plans with? Going on a couples trip with Peggy and Master Dodd would be somewhat frightening, but they seem well-connected to followers like Laura Dern who will just offer up their mansion free of charge, and I’m not exactly in a position to be spending White Lotus money right now.

Who would I rather dissect a frog with in 9th grade biology class? I’m gonna give this one to Anna. She would take the reins and we’d get an A. Peggy, meanwhile, would be more interested in mutilating the frog’s corpse or ignoring the task completely in favor of scrawling a troubling personal manifesto in her notebook.

Who would I prefer to sing karaoke with and what song would we sing? There is a lot of uncomfortable a cappella singing in The Master, but I feel like Peggy and I might be able to do a nice rendition of a jazz standard, like “Come Fly with Me.” Anna, on the other hand, would want to sing something awful like “One Way or Another” and she would always be a little a sharp.

That means Peggy wins the vibe check in a 3-2 victory! Catch me chowing on the little sandwiches at Master Dodd’s next book reading.

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Thanks for reading Uncultured. This issue took seven hours to put together, including suffering through one of the worst romantic comedies of all time and watching Joaquin Phoenix jerk off a sand person. If you enjoyed reading, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber, or sharing a link to social.