Two Mexican films in a matter of weeks and both are irrepressibly gloomy and disturbing. We Are What We Are got down to business as quickly as possible with an interesting hook, but Michael Rowe's debut keeps the audience in the dark as to what is happening in Leap Year and why should we spend 94 minutes watching this one woman shuffle around her apartment. It all becomes clear, but whether or not the reveal is worth it is another matter entirely.
Laura (del Carmen) lives alone is a cramped, ant and cockroach ridden apartment in Mexico City. Laura is an oddity – when her mother phones she lies about the life she's having (telling her she's eating steak when she's eating from a tin or she can't talk because she has friends over, which she never does). A sexual person, Laura masturbates to the couple across the way; not because they're having sex, but because it's the normal life she desires. A journalist who works from home, she doesn't get out much except for a jaunt to a nightclub where the sole mission is to pull some guy and take him home for a quick tryst. One such guy is the quiet Arturo (Sánchez Parra) and their slap-and-tickle bedroom antics escalate to sado-masochism. As their activities get ever more dangerous, and the date on her calendar that's marked red gets closer, it becomes clear that Laura has something planned for the unsuspecting Arturo on February 29th.
Bar the opening scene, which sees Laura in a supermarket, Leap Year takes place entirely in one apartment with only one main actor – Arturo, her brother Raul (Zapata), and other men of the night are the only people to disturb Laura's solitude - and desperately needs a strong character to carry the film. Laura delivers: played with a quiet enchantment by del Carmen, she cuts an interesting figure who asks the audience to revisit everything you know about her at the climax (vague, I know, but to say more would ruin everything).
There are, however, only so many scenes of her wandering about the apartment or eating or going to the toilet one can endure before the dreaded glance at the watch happens. Basing a film in one apartment, Leap Year suffers from the obvious problems – it's tough to keep interest level high past mild curiosity as to where it's going, and it's climax, although unexpected, doesn't have the necessary oomph needed to satisfy the deathly slow build up.
