a review of Jeffrey Overstreet
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Directed by Peter Howitt; written by Aline Brosh McKenna and Robert Harling; director of photography, Adrian Biddle; edited by Tony Lawson; music by Edward Shearmur; production designer, Charles J. H. Wood; produced by David T. Friendly, Marc Turtletaub, Beau St. Clair, Julie Durk and David Bergstein; released by New Line Cinema. Running time: 90 minutes. This film is rated PG-13.
STARRING: Pierce Brosnan (Daniel Rafferty), Julianne Moore (Audrey Woods), Parker Posey (Serena), Michael Sheen (Thorne Jamison), Frances Fisher (Sara Miller) and Nora Dunn (Judge Abramovitz).
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Taking a break from James Bond films, Pierce Brosnan tries his hand at another genre in Laws of Attraction. As if she too is itching for a different sort of role, something less dramatic and controlled, Julianne Moore breaks out of her method-acting constraints and goofs up a storm as Brosnan’s love interest. Director Peter Howitt seems determined to turn these two into a new Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn.
His casting is impeccable. Brosnan and Moore do have a delightful chemistry, and it’s great to see them settling into an easygoing comedy. But what’s missing is a good script. Hollywood studios have become more and more proficient at marketing comedies and worse and worse at choosing well-written scripts. Laws of Attraction is painfully predictable, full of super-sized implausibilities, and crowded with supporting characters that are underdeveloped and overplayed.
Brosnan and Moore play Daniel and Audrey, divorce lawyers who face off in the courtroom over a particularly nasty dispute between a rock star (Michael Sheen) and his fashion-designer wife (Parker Posey, in a role that somehow makes her entirely unattractive and annoying). As the tensions rise inside the courtroom, Daniel and Audrey find a romance sparking to life, and Audrey is not too happy about it.
Neither am I. These two characters are clearly destined to live happily ever after, but the film never provides them with the central ingredient of a solid romantic relationship… a relationship. Daniel teases Audrey. Audrey spurns Daniel. They get drunk. Brosnan shows off his carpet of chest hair at every possible opportunity, and it works, because after only a few insult-matches they wake up in bed together. We’re supposed to believe that Audrey’s shock and dismay is the only thing standing between the two of them and marital bliss? If I were their marriage counselor, I’d be advising some serious character development. And I’d want them both to own up to their alcoholism, which is obvious but never discussed.
I have little else to say about the film. It’s stylishly filmed. Ireland makes a great backdrop, and I felt my attention drifting from the cast and the plot into fantasies of a future vacation. Some critics are praising what they call a “pro-marriage” message, but all I saw was a prescription for a matrimonial catastrophe. This movie cannot fathom what’s required for a healthy, lasting marriage.
I heard a lot of laughter in the theatre in response to the lame, obvious, unimaginative humor, reinforcing my suspicion that most bad sitcoms would do just fine on the big screen and probably make more money along the way. After all, most people go to the movies to turn their brains off instead of charging them up. And in doing so, they consume all kinds of mediocrity, which probably has the same effect on their minds that chemical-filled artificial butter slathered over their popcorn and a box of Milk Duds has on their bodies
I do believe Julianne Moore will star in a great comedy someday. It might even co-star Brosnan. But this is not that movie.