Two Weeks Notice
(2002)
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Opposites attract in the directorial debut of screenwriter Marc Lawrence. Determined activist, lawyer, and idealist Lucy Kelson (Sandra Bullock) has a noble reason for accepting a top position at Wade Realty Corporation. By taking the job, she can save the beloved community center in her Coney Island neighborhood. Along with the job comes the position of personal advisor to her high-maintenance boss, George Wade (Hugh Grant). As the two work together, down-to-earth Lucy becomes utterly indispensable to millionaire playboy George, so much so that he seeks her advice on everything from stationery selection to his divorce settlement to what suit he should wear. When Lucy gives her two weeks notice and realizes that her potential replacement, June Carter (Alicia Witt), has some strong chemistry with George, she has to acknowledge her own romantic feelings for her boss. Likewise, faced with losing the person he relies upon most, George is forced to do some soul searching of his own. Grant is well-cast as freewheeling George, delivering his lines with subtlety and making a potentially irritating character likable and charming. TWO WEEKS NOTICE also stars Dana Ivey and Robert Klein as Lucy's parents. |
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Sandra Bullock plays a liberal lawyer who fights for environmental causes; Hugh Grant is a real estate tycoon who plans to knock down her local community centre in Coney Island to build condominiums — she agrees to work for him if he doesn't go ahead with the demolition. So, the pair are thrown together in true romantic comedy tradition: opposites fighting an attraction. Bullock ends up running the hapless tycoon's life — everything from handling his divorce to choosing his shirts — until she gets fed up, hands in her (two weeks) notice and quits. Will they overcome their differences and find a way back to each other? The formulaic plot is not the main problem here as even the best romantic comedies have genre conventions. It's Bullock and Grant. Both natural, charming actors with the ability to play light comedy, they should have been the dream rom-com team, but they're just trying too hard and with little result. All this effort only highlights that what really makes a screen romance work — a magical chemistry between the protagonists à la Tracy and Hepburn — is missing.