The Laws of Attraction
Release Date:
April 30, 2004
On the Big Board |
| Position |
Staff |
In Brief |
| 52/92 |
David Mumpower |
Pierce Brosnan is charming, Julianne Moore much less so. |
| 105/126 |
Kim Hollis |
Julianne Moore is just woefully miscast here. |
The dynamic between Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn was so kinetic that the duo formed their own sub-genre of cinema. A Tracy/Hepburn movie followed the stylistic screwball comedy patterns of Howard Hawkes classics like Bringing Up Baby and His Girl Friday. The opposites always wound up attracting, conveniently leading to equal amounts of fighting and falling love.
English director Peter Howitt demonstrated a deft touch for romance in his debut at the helm, Sliding Doors. He later went satirically wacky with the international blockbuster, Johnny English. In Laws of Attraction, he will attempt to combine the two modes in an update of the WWII era screwball comedies.
Utilizing the acting talents of current James Bond himself, Pierce Brosnan, and the criminally underappreciated Julianne Moore, Howitt seeks to follow in the recent footsteps of Intolerable Cruelty by analyzing the romantic entanglements of divorce attorneys. The key difference here as opposed to the George Clooney outing is that both parties involved make a living through the suffering of former matrimonial partners. Also, it's not a Coen Brothers movie, so one would assume the quirk factor will be held in check for the most part.
Brosnan plays Daniel, an attorney who has never lost a trial. When he discovers himself faced off against Moore's Audrey, a litigator with a similarly impeccable track record, he is overwrought with ambiguity. On the one hand, his ego drives him to prove he is the better divorce lawyer. On the other hand, he can't help but be smitten by a woman so similar to himself.
Audrey, equally wary of her prey (or is it hunter?), raises shields to maximum when the opposing council starts to flirt with her. Since it's a romantic comedy, one presumes her success in this endeavor will be minimal. The thrill is based in the journey, though, and if Laws of Attraction is anything like the screwball comedies it seeks to mimic, this could be a classic.
Brosnan already demonstrated in The Thomas Crowne Affair that despite perennial Hollywood thinking, a pair of thespians don't have to be in their 20s in order to creatic cinematic sparks together. Moore is one of the most beautiful and talented over-40 actresses the industry has ever seen, so the on-screen pairing of this duo in a romantic comedy by a rising director is glorious on paper. (David Mumpower/BOP)
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