Starring: Sandra Bullock, Hugh Grant
Director: and writer Marc Lawrence
Rated: PG
FOR a while, Hugh Grant wanted us to take him seriously as a dramatic actor.
In the last two years, thank goodness, he has returned to the romantic comedy roles he does best.
Millionaire property developer George Wade (Grant) needs a new chief lawyer for his corporation. When he, literally, runs into Harvard Law School graduate Lucy Kelson (Sandra Bullock) he thinks he has found his perfect new counsel.
Lucy, however, is a committed environmentalist. In fact she protests every one of Wade’s developments. She has to decide whether it’s better to change the company from within.
After a year of nursing Wade, Lucy has had enough and gives in her notice. It’s only then that both of them start to realise how involved they have become with each other.
This feather-light show is pleasant matinee fare. We have been here before. It’s a corporate version of The President’s Wife. Marc Lawrence’s screenplay has some good comic lines which Grant and Bullock deliver with aplomb. They play off each other very well indeed.
Two Weeks Notice trades on parodying the politically correct world of gender politics and the environmental movement, but it does it affectionately.
The soundtrack is filled with hit songs to which we can sing along. Susan Morse’s editing is good too and so the 107 minutes moves along nicely.
There are a couple of annoying scenes, like the need for a toilet stop in the car jam on the freeway and, having secured the services of Hugh Grant, it’s a hard sell to make us believe an Englishman is New York’s leading property tycoon. Can’t Grant do an American accent?
Two Weeks Notice is a fun way to spend a long hot summer’s afternoon.
