After having left her family and moving to Mexico City, Laura (Monica del Carmen) confines herself to her small apartment, spending her days watching television, crossing the days off of the calendar, spying on the neighbors, and eating food from the can. To escape the abject loneliness of her life, she finds some degree of comfort in the arms of the men she brings home from clubs. Thanks to del Carmen's performance and the austere presentation (the film is filled with lengthy stationary shots, mirroring the static nature of Laura's existence), Leap Year is effective throughout in capturing the agony of unwanted solitude. The progressively more violent sexuality throughout is painful to watch and will turn most viewers away, but it is testament to the fact that the protagonist, sadly, prefers brutality to her own isolation.

3 & 1/4 stars, which is good since I'm not into rom-com genre. As usual, the story was silly & not believable. However, the acting was good & their relationship was touching.

Transgressive and unexpectedly hard to watch, the movie portrays loneliness in a never seen before way, as well as offers a visit to usually ignored charachters' intimacy and everyday life, creating an umpredictable tale of ordinary people that features career-best performance from Mónica del Carmen.

A haunting, disturbing, gripping, thrilling, unsettling and unpredictable exploration of loneliness, sexuality, emotional disorders, sadomasoquism and toxic relationships, anchored by a deft direction from Michael Rowe and a complex lead performance from Monica del Carmen.

This film was at first sight a turn off, the main actress at first seems like a self indulgent loser. The sex is honestly portrayed as empty, unlike Hollywood movies which tend to glamorize situations, in this film the sex scenes are depressing rather than unfilleting. I did understand why some reviewers were put off but I appreciate it rather than enjoyed it. So for this film set on its view apart, I give " Ano Bisiesto KA Leap Year " a D.

why are critics praising on this,is beyond me...it's like a grotesque version of 50 shades of grey...and I didn't even bother with that one,so...i don't really know why I watched this one in the first place.dear critics,you have a sick mind.sorry.

*** my review may contain spoilers *** Simply disgusting and horrible. Don't even bother unless you want to pull your own teeth or doing root canal without anaesthetic while watching this. I never wrote a review about any movie ever. If I watch any bad film, I just gonna think (well, wasted 2hrs of my life.. okay lets move on) not this one. This one is just scarred me for life. I've never been feminist myself but its just simply stupid. its just make me angry with the man and the woman. Its disgusting, pointless, too much porn action that super unnecessary (ok I watch it one or two actions, cool yeah I got it. no need too much) and BDSM that kind of more cruel. i live in Bangkok where most of the times, I think of how morally depraved and I feel sad of the situation here as in prostitution and any sort of real life problem for people who faced it. the depression, the loneliness, the eager and hope of from a woman who work here, in a soi cowboy or nana plaza, to get a man - who maybe one day actually going to care or fall for her. Or at least know their name. You could smell the sadness from hundred yards away if you live here. but this movie is just...... i don't even understand..... like really....... Too many pissing scene (as the guy pissed and the woman pissed in toilet) - if I'm into watersport porn or pissing movie - i can just use that keyword in any porn site I feel so frustrated because i hope in the end of the movie - there will be some sick twisted that make me not so evil by watching this. But its not. I just feel like I want to shower and pray to Universe and clean myself for what I just watch. I feel I lost my humanity by watching this movie. I don't get any "moral or life lesson or" this is what life nowadays, guys". nope, didn't get that message. zilch. nada. But then again, thats just my opinion. I realise nobody cares. I just share what i feel now and i feel satisfaction by doing it. I am sure, for you guys who super smart and understand about humanity and real life, maybe you could gain some lesson and found it interesting. For me everything is confusing and frustrating, either the girl want to suicide, or she want this guy to kill her, or is she incest and who took her virginity, nothing is answer. nothing. too foggy like pollution in China. if i want to watch or see something that too frustrating - i could just watch politics or real life news everyday, not a film.

I can only describe Monica del Carmen's performance as absolutely fearless.

A raw, uncompromising portrait of a woman journalist, brilliantly played by Monica Del Carmen, who is riven by isolation, financial insecurity and a sexually abusive past. The direction is masterful and if you like the work of Haneke and Von Trier, you may well find a lot to appreciate here.

Sort of weird...S&M gone a little crazy...she should have probably asked an NFL player to off her during sex

Very depressing, very miserable, very real. Great performance from Monica Del Carmen and it must have cost about 50p to make. Minimal budget film makers take note.

Año Bisiesto (Leap Year) (Michael Rowe, 2010) I am willing to admit right up front that some of my problems with this movie come from the fact that I'm really, really uncomfortable with some of the material presented here. When the Netflix description said main character Laura (Babel's Monica del Carmen) gets involved in a sadomasochistic relationship, I figured that was probably the Netflix blurbers' much-storied hyperbole kicking into action, and halfway through the movie, when we get to the kind of butt-smacking that causes women in porn films to exclaim "oh, YEAH!" in THAT voice, I figured my preconceptions were going to be borne out. But oh, how wrong I was, and like I said, I will admit up front that if you are more comfortable with such things, you might find less to criticize here than I did. But note: I said "might", because the empirical problems with this movie are still there, and they are still mighty. Plot: Laura is a journalist leading a spectacularly unfulfilling life while keeping up appearances for the folks back home. ("I'm having dinner... I just made steak", she says during a phone conversation to her mother, while scooping beans straight out of the can.) Her love life, in particular, is not giving her anything she needs-it's a series of one-night stands and masturbatory fantasies that leave her no better off than she was before they happened. Until, that is, spurred on by her younger brother (The Ruination of Men's Marco Zapata) finally getting involved in a stable relationship, she decides to go looking for one herself and gets involved with Arturo (Amores Perros' Gustavo Sánchez Parra), who quickly reveals himself to be a brutal, abusive, overly jealous cad of the sort that would have most people fleeing screaming in terror-but Laura seems perfectly fine with it. It's impossible to watch any sexual-obsession drama from Mexico these days and not compare it to Batalla en el Cielo, Carlos Reygadas' confusing, but accomplished, debut. In short, there is no metric by which you can compare this movie to that one in which this does not fall short. Rowe's faux-cinema-verite camerawork is laughable most of the time, used more as an excuse for crappy lighting and sound more than any artistic pretension (though not to say this movie isn't painfully pretentious). The pace is nonexistent in the first half and glacial in the second, and I say this as a huge fan of such slow-film masters as Ozu, Kieslowski, and Tarr. Simply put, there's nothing here; it's a slice-of-life drama with not enough slice for the S&M fiends and not enough life for anyone else. Half a star because, despite my desperately wanting to, I did not shut it off, persevering to the bitter (and entirely unfulfilling) end. 1/2

Quite a disturbing movie without much purpose nor rhythm. Although the character is believable in current life time, the progression of the story is not.

I hate ChicFlix but this one was pretty good. A wee bit predictable but still enjoyable.

Ok, this is not a movie about love, is about madness and sex, wild and masochist sex :D aaaaaand i didn't like it cause i can't understand those people, what i loved is that they used ordinary people, if they were beyond sexy it would have been pure porn

Film mexicano que nos cuenta las aventuras sexuales de una mujer traumatizada por un acontecimiento que marco a su familia. Laura es una mujer solitaria que trabaja escribiendo desde un ordenador en su casa y se distrae espiando a su vecinos por la ventana. Su unico solaz es seducir a un hombre cada noche que sale. Hasta que una de esas noches en el mes de febrero conoce a un individuo peculiar, Arturo, un actor con gustos sadomasoquistas en el dormitorio. Al principio esta todo claro Arturo es el dominante y Laura la dominada, pero a medida que la pelicula avanza notamos que hay algo mas siniestro en esta relacion y que Laura tiene problemas profundos. Su calendario tiene marcado en rojo el 29 de febrero, pero que significa eso? Cual es el dramatico evento que mantiene a Laura aislada de su familia y el mundo? La pelicula, filmada por completo en el apartamento de Laura, no nos proporciona todas las respuestas a las incognitas per no por eso la narracion pierde fuerza. Es sin duda la crudeza sexual de muchas de las imagenes lo que produce mas impacto y lo que hara que el espectador nunca olvide este film. Desde un punto de vista mexicano tradicional esto podria ser considerado pornografico, sin embargo, esta pelicula es mas que eso, una historia de soledad y, de alguna manera, de amor insertada en un Mexico urbano y moderno.

beautiful romantic movie mix with timely wits

This is sex in cinema done right. The overall message of the film is so Powerful. Must watch.

An independent Mexican film that is a great character study about a woman who is very lonely and depressed.

Absolutely unorthodox, sexually disturbing and emotionally painful, Leap Year is an affecting low-budget psychological and sexual drama which stuns with its exploration of depression and human loneliness. Almost too raw and too daring, this movie is an intense and powerful challenge for everyone who would try to watch it. The story-telling and the setting is among the simplest possible I've seen. The whole movie happens in the small depressing apartment of a young journalist in Mexico City. Closed between four unfriendly walls, she experiences each minute of loneliness, depression and isolation. Without anything specific happening, except for her one-night-sex-stands, director Michael Rowe depicts a painfully realistic world in which Laura ( Monica del Carmen) stops being seen as a movie character, but as a real person by the audience. The appearance of Arturo ( Gustavo Sanchez Parra) as the man who challenges and crosses the sexual boarder of Laura is something much more than an explicit and violent psycho-sexual study. It is a stronger way to depict the absolute human loneliness of Laura and her hopelessness. Leap Year is not only about the strange story of a young woman, but also the unexpectedly raw craftsmanship of Michael Rowe. Being totally unknown to the wide audience, he has delivered a movie that shocks, disturbs and challenges in a very human way. With an aesthetic direction he has made this one-room drama an extremely tense movie while bringing up a terrific performance by Monica del Carmen. There is no doubt that Leap Year is not for everyone. It would disturb you, it would challenge you, it would provide you with more questions than answers. Questions that would make you realize that you actually care about the Laura, long after the final credits. A very, very demanding movie, but truly rewarding !