Originally Posted 2/1/08
2002 was a very busy year for Sandra Bullock. After finding a surprise hit in 2000 with Miss Congeniality (Ms. Jackson if you're forced reference) Bullock made a Jude Law-esq three films in 2002 (none with Mr. Law however). Her first film of 2002 was the shocking emotional thriller Murd3r by Numbers. A film so shocking and relevant it reverted to l33t in the title. Not since The Net has a Bullock movie been so in touch with today's internet savvy world. Her next film was the heart warming gem The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sister Hood. A movie so good it decided to go with the backup title. Neither film was the success that Miss Congeniality had been, so for her third movie that year she re-teamed with the writer and director of Miss Congeniality, Marc Lawrence for Two Weeks Notice. A romantic comedy produced by Bullock starring herself and Hugh Grant. Of her three movies in 2002 Two Weeks Notice had the worst title; the correct grammar is Two Week's Notice. (I learned this from the internets because I am no one to judge grammar.) In spite of its title,however, Two Weeks Notice was her most successful film of the year, grossing as much as her last 2 movies combined in theatres. While researching the movie I learned a weird fact about it. The film was one of the first movies filmed in New York City after the attacks of September 11th. The success of Two Weeks Notice is actually credited with helping the cities economy rebound after the attacks and December 11, 2002 was actually named "Two Weeks Notice Day" by the mayor. You see Guliani had nothing to do with helping rebound NYC after the attacks and Sandra Bullock should have run for president. If only she would have made a movie in New Orleans post Katrina.
Two Weeks Notice is an interesting film. When I started out doing this I figured it would be 52 weeks of me bashing these movies to shit. What would happen if one of these movies was actually good? Well half way into my second week I was ALMOST faced with this dilemma. We are introduced to Lucy Kelson (Bullock) at the open of the movie. Lucy is protesting hippy and is currently protesting the destruction of a building. Lucy is a lawyer/activist who went to Harvard and got a law degree so she could lay in the street to protect condemned buildings. She has a boyfriend who is over seas with Green Peace and never comes home to visit her. The stress of fighting losing causes and a boyfriend she never sees causes her to over eat, and the movie LOVES this fact. It even calls back to it every 15 minutes. If anything makes her nervous she binges on food (thankfully all off screen). It seems that every building Lucy is trying to save in New York is being destroyed by a company run by George Wade (Grant).
George Wade is a rich British man who was raised in America (according to photos shown during the opening credits) and has a very British accent. I will assume George was raised in the Wee Britain area of Manhattan (be sure to look out for the Poppins). He is the face of the company while his, also British, brother really runs the business and bosses George around from behind the scenes. When we meet George he is summoned by his brother in the middle of a party. His brother tells him that he needs to hire a new lawyer and one with an Ivy League education. Luckily, on the street he is approached by Lucy who makes him an offer. If he promises not to destroy a community center, that she went loved as a child, Lucy will get him a lucrative land deal in Coney Island across the street. After learning she is a Harvard grad George offers her the lawyer job with the promise he won't destroy her community center. We have a plot!
The movie then has a flash-forward to one year later. After working for George for a year Lucy has grown tired of his neediness. George is a rich man who can't make decisions for himself and almost every decision in his life is made by Lucy. He calls her at 3 am just to ask her what pants he should wear. It is after a call forcing her to leave a wedding that Lucy decides to quit her job and go back to being a hippy activist. The first half of the movie the not bad at all, it's surprisingly good. The two characters are interesting and for the first 45 minutes it's not about them being in love with each other at all. It's the opposite of last weeks How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. That movie was a collection of unfunny skits with two mediocre actors playing two shitty characters. This movie actually attempts to let us know how these characters need each other without treating the viewer like an idiot.
Then the second half of the movie starts and it feels like insert cliché here from then on. Lucy has given her two week's notice (WE HAVE A TITLE!) and she now has to find a replacement for her. Alicia Witt is introduced as attractive young attorney looking for a job. George hires her just by looking at her and so begins the Lucy is jealous of the attractive redhead part of the movie. Lucy has quit her job because she was sick of George and now she hates that George is getting close to her replacement. In the year she has worked for George, Lucy had a boyfriend and when they break up she drunkenly tries to sleep with George. It's a good thing she had already quit. George does not sleep with her and actually frees her from an awkward situation by joking off the fact she made a move on him. Lucy clearly has feelings for him, but she never says anything to him when she is sober. She instead plays the jealous woman who hates the younger woman because the younger woman is moving in on the guy she likes, but she has never told the guy she loves him. The movie gets as stupid as that sentence. The jealousy plot goes on for the entire last half of the movie leading to a collection of skits where Witt and Bullock butt heads in tennis matches and a horrible scene about a company stapler. It is on Lucy's very last day George is told by his brother that the company has no choice, but to tear down the community center that George promised to save. This event makes everything in the movie George's fault, because he now has to break his promise to Lucy.
The movie closes with a predicable wrap up. George chooses not to give in to his brother and quits his job for Lucy. He then goes to her new job to tell her what he has done and to ask her for forgiveness, because the man is always wrong. He finally confesses to her he loves her and the movie ends with a kiss. It was really touching and I cried on the inside. I am only two movies in and I have noticed a pattern in these types of movies. Women love to be apologized to and told they are loved in front of strangers and/or coworkers. Women want to be swept off their feet either at work or before they are leaving the city/country forever. I think I am going to go to the airport next week and tell every woman I see that I am sorry and love her.
The movie had a chance of being good, but it bailed out and became just another chick flick.
Better than How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days: Yes.
Picture of the Week
Next week I spend another evening with Sandra Bullock in The Lake House…
Pray for me.
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