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Movies Forum Index » Independent Movies Forum » Pretty stars, in Pretty Familiar Story
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| Vanguard8765 |
 Posted: Sat May 01, 2004 1:01 am |
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New York Observer
And so it is with some relief when a movie comes along like Laws of
Attraction, a slick, lushly appointed romantic comedy which will not
appeal to tattooed freaks, violence-craving kids, prison inmates or
critics desperately trying to prove how young and hip they are, but
which does provide an element of the one word that has disappeared
from the world of movies. Remember the word "entertainment"? It went
the way of Vincente Minnelli. So is Laws of Attraction a great comedy?
Get real. What was the last great comedy you saw, or the last great
anything? No, in essence, Laws of Attraction is about only two things:
(1) how pretty Julianne Moore is, and (2) how pretty Pierce Brosnan
is. O.K., it's not Billy Wilder. But compared to all of the films I've
suffered through lately about killing and war and dope fiends and
pedophiles and suicide, I'll take pretty. Pretty is good.
The two stars are battling New York divorce lawyers who fall in love
hating each other. We just saw the same plot with George Clooney and
Catherine Zeta-Jones in the godawful Coen Brothers fiasco Intolerable
Cruelty, but so what? Everything is a copy of something else these
days; inspired originality is as hard to come by as one of Mr.
Brosnan's 007 Maseratis at a half-price sale. And even with its
plodding tempo and dull padding, Laws of Attraction is a better,
edgier movie. The adversarial Moore-Brosnan duo is rich, beautiful and
successful, but they never go anywhere. They do not date, or end up on
Page Six. They don't seem to have any friends or lovers or get any
bang for their bucks. What is wrong with this picture? She is Audrey
Miller, a crack attorney who is not beyond framing the husbands of her
female clients to get them better settlements. Now she's up to her
Palm Pilot fighting off the toughest opponent she's ever faced in a
courtroom. He is Daniel Rafferty, new in town, smart, ruthless, a GQ
cover who has never lost a case. From their opening arguments on, it's
open war in the divorce-court trenches, using every strategy from
apology to insult as they thrust and parry their way through New York,
drinking lethal Mexican cocktails, landing in bed in a moment of horny
weakness with him showing up in court dangling her panties. Two pit
bulls whose battles in one divorce trial after another become fodder
for the tabloid-news channels. Ridiculous, of course, but it's the
same stuff they print every day in the New York Post. Things boil over
with the latest boldface divorce war between two instant celebs, a
fried-brains-a-flaky designer named Serena (Parker Posey) and her
rock-star husband, Thorne (Michael Sheen), the lead singer for a group
called the Needles. Each of them is fighting over a castle in Ireland,
so it's off to the land of leprechauns to depose the household staff.
Among the fiddles, clog dances and shamrocks, the movie takes a
detour, and the two very charming stars get a chance to display how
much charm they really have, getting married in a drunken Guinness
stout stupor. Back in Manhattan, when he wins the divorce case because
of a piece of evidence he finds accidentally in her garbage bin, it's
time for them to hit the judge's chambers for their own divorce. By
this time, the movie has collapsed along with every attempt at
artificial respiration—but they're so pretty to look at, and this
movie isn't over yet. If you haven't dozed off, there are more
surprises on the way.
The eternally debonair Brosnan, who is more underrated than he should
be, mixes some of his celebrated sardonic James Bond wit with the
sensitivity he showed in the marvelous film Evelyn. The delectable Ms.
Moore is clearly having a rest from her usual tense and demanding
assignments. Famous for roles that are usually one step away from
depression, danger and death, they both look like they are having a
swell time playing a sexy, relaxed, contemporary and self-confident
rivalry in the Tracy and Hepburn mold. And there is a crisp, appealing
and hilarious contribution by Frances Fisher, who plays Ms. Moore's
rich, vain mother. This ageless logarithm with the face lifts and the
Eve Arden wisecracks is, in real life, almost the same age as Julianne
Moore. When Mr. Brosnan meets her for the first time, he asks, "Are
you really 56?" She purrs girlishly, "Parts of me are." She's got all
the best lines—or maybe it's just that they're the only lines in the
picture that don't sound like they've been rewritten a dozen times.
Depending on which credits you read, several screenwriters have been
listed. Sometimes two and sometimes three—Aline Brosh McKenna, Karey
Kilpatrick and Robert Harling—are credited, which is never a good
sign. The dialogue is so muddled it's hard to know who wrote what, but
Mr. Harling (Steel Magnolias, The First Wives Club) has such a talent
for clever zingers you can almost place bets on which lines are his.
The movie's weak stab at making some kind of statement on the divorce
issue doesn't ring true at all, and although the British director,
Peter Howitt, proved with the Gwyneth Paltrow film Sliding Doors that
he can juggle styles and tempos without confusing excess, he doesn't
seem entirely comfortable with American comedy. Thank you, Jesus, for
the two stars. It's their movie all the way, and Mr. Howitt has the
wisdom to just get out of the way and let them go at each other like
chinchillas in heat. |
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