R. J. Review of Two Weeks Notice

Two Weeks Notice (2002)

Disheartening romantic comedy that fails to run off with a great premise

[18 March 2003]

A good romantic comedy is something very hard to pull off successfully, and "Two Weeks' Notice" is proof that, when you don't pull it off, the results can be disheartening. Despite the presence of certified genre stars as Hugh Grant and Sandra Bullock, this directing debut from "Forces of Nature" and "Miss Congeniality" screenwriter Marc Lawrence, also masterminded by Bullock's Fortis Films company, fails to actually run off decently with its potentially great Cinderella premise: an idealist, activist lawyer accepts to work as legal counsel for a jetsetting millionnaire who treats her as a personal assistant, and eventually resigns from her job only for both of them to find letting go is not as easy as they expected. The script was probably very funny but it must have got lost somewhere in the filming, as not even Susan E. Morse, who edited Woody Allen's films for nearly thirty years, manages to help Lawrence find it. There is the occasionally inspired gag and the typecast stars make for an easygoing, charming couple, but the fairytale mood never really crystallises and you?re left with a pretty forgettable entry.