Film Reviews

Two Weeks Notice

• Rating:
• Director:
• Starring: Alicia Witt
• Details: US / 100 mins / (12PG).

Old fashioned, extremely patchy romantic comedy featuring Hugh Grant doing a mild, sanitised version of his befuddled but suave Englishman abroad. He plays property tycoon George Wade, the public face of a real estate company, and a man with a penchant for the finer things in life. Lucy Kelson (Bullock), on the otherhand, is a rabid environmentalist lawyer who is intent on saving a local neighbourhood spot from the Wade Company's wrecking ball. Desperate to find a new legal counsel with brains as well as beauty, Wade hires Kelson, and she grudgingly accepts. But what starts out as a purely professional arrangement soon spills over into something different, with Wade unable to do anything without the advice of his most trusted employee. Tired of his midnight confessional phone calls and all the other hindrances associated with the job, Lucy decides to call it quits.

Playing it mostly for laughs at the expense of any hint of realism in the script, there's an unmistakable hollow ring of sub sit com desperation about Two Weeks Notice as it flags around, content to win the odd chuckle instead of genuine heartfelt laughs. As a screen coupling, Grant and Bullock work reasonably well together, but neither star possesses the necessary wit, candour or gravitas to make Two Weeks Notice soar.

Review by Garreth Murphy