At the Movies - 'Two Weeks Notice'

The Associated Press

How could Hugh Grant and Sandra Bullock -- two masters of dry wit and physical comedy -- end up in such a flat movie?

Grant is the wealthy boss-from-hell and Bullock his radical activist lawyer in "Two Weeks Notice," a romantic comedy about finding love and acceptance in the most unlikely places.

The one-liners fly but the sparks do not in screenwriter Marc Lawrence's directorial debut, which he wrote specifically for the two stars.

First off, I am a die-hard Sandra Bullock fan -- and I am not alone. A wide slice of America loved the gutsy, gallant heroine in "Speed," the determined boozer in "28 Days," the New Age wanderer in "Forces of Nature," the gum-snapping, one-of-the-boys FBI agent in "Miss Congeniality" -- the last two of which Lawrence wrote.

But in "Two Weeks Notice," there's no chemistry between Grant and Bullock until the very end -- and by then it's too late. Both succeed in being so annoying that it's difficult to see how they would want each other, or why we would care.

New York real estate mogul George Wade (Grant) is making a killing knocking down beloved local landmarks for multimillion-dollar projects. Activist Lucy Kelson (Bullock) lies down in front of his wrecking ball, gets arrested and then later sues Wade for not filing an environmental impact statement for one of those projects.

She's done this before -- and she usually wins.

So when George needs a new lawyer, who does he turn to?

The woman who is beating him in court.

Lucy enters the corporate world with great trepidation, lured by promises of being in charge of vast sums of corporate donations.

But the shallow George doesn't want just a lawyer. He wants a butler, a maid, a drinking buddy, an older sister. He pages Lucy at all hours of the day and night for the most trivial demands.

She quits, he says no, she quits, he says OK. She finds a replacement -- a smarmy, conniving redhead (Alicia Witt) who immediately sets her hooks to land the boss. Suddenly, George is not looking so bad from Lucy's rearview mirror.

Many of Bullock's roles are a variation upon a theme: a tough, smart cookie on the outside looking in. By the end of each movie, however, someone, somewhere recognizes just how witty, brilliant, goodhearted and gorgeous she really is.

This story line works like a charm for the 99 percent of us who are not beauty queens (even though, technically, Bullock is one, gracing the cover of next month's Vogue.)

Take one smashing dress, let the hair down or put it up, come up with the best solution to the murder or the mystery or whatever, and presto, the girl next door becomes the girl you want.

Grant delivers his lines with the same panache that so charmed us in "Four Weddings and a Funeral," but we expect more of him now. This performance is a sharp step back from the soul-searching that won him such critical praise in "About a Boy" -- possibly because he has long outgrown the straitjacket that Lawrence crafted for him.

And little details miss the mark. You think a dedicated Birkenstock fan like Lucy is going to wear 4-inch heels now just because she works for a corporation? Or a real estate mogul is going to be making his own coffee in the employee lounge?

Torch singer Norah Jones brings a warm, melancholy tone to the soundtrack that for a moment makes you think yes, maybe they are made for each other, maybe this could work. But a screeching Muzak version of Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi" -- as apt as the song about paving paradise may be -- slams the brakes on subtlety.

"Make sure you massage his cloven hoof!" Lucy howls to spa workers when she realizes that George does not intend to let her out of her employment contract.

"No one wants to live with a saint. Saints are boring," George retorts in a later scene.

He got that right. Sometimes devils can be too.

Released by Warner Brothers, "Two Weeks Notice" is rated PG-13 for some sex-related humor.

Running time: 100 minutes. Two stars out of four.