L'amour sans préavis

Lucy Kelson {Sandra Bullock} lands a job as chief counsel for a big hitting New York real estate firm that is owned by mega-rich George Wade {Hugh Grant}. He's an engaging enough boss but he's very shallow, and Lucy finds that she's practically running his life for him. So finally tiring of being treated like a Personal Assistant, she gives her two weeks notice of resignation. But can the pair do with out each other? And is there more than a working relationship bubbling under the surface? For his first feature film directing assignment, Marc Lawrence played it safe and got lucky with his lead actors. Whilst hardly setting a new benchmark in the ROM-COM genre, Two Weeks Notice is however witty and not without charm. This is due in the main to the pairing of Grant & Bullock, who play it perky and spark a chemistry so sadly lacking in many other modern day films of its ilk. By their own admission the pair got on great off screen, and that is evident as the pair feed of each other to make the lightweight script work wonders. The dominance of the pair tho leaves little room for the supporting actors to breathe, with many of them coming across as mere fillers. It's this that stops the film from being the great film that Bullock, and particularly Grant's, efforts deserved.

Enjoyable light entertainment that could have been better if more thought had gone into the outer characters. 6.5/10

TWO WEEKS NOTICE (2002) *** Sandra Bullock, Hugh Grant, Alicia Witt, Dana Ivey, Robert Klein, Dorian Missick, Heather Burns, Jason Antoon. Charming screwball romantic comedy with Bullock as an A-type/neo-hippie cum grass-roots lawyer who finds herself employed by wealthy conglomerate merger type businessman Grant and after attempting to get him to change his ways gives her titular ultimatum only to discover – you got it – they are really meant for one another. The film may be formulaic but its stars have that special, instant and utterly natural chemistry together helped with a crackling zingerfest screenplay by its director Marc Lawrence who manages to make the creaky device work even if its last act is by rote and Witt as Bullock's replacement (in more ways than one) is a pallid shadow of `All About Eve' .

I am sick of defending romantic comedies on this site. Every time a new one hits our screens IMDb is absolutely inundated with reviews containing the words, boring and predictable.

Most of the time these reviews are written by people who are just annoyed that nobody was killed or nobody fired a gun or blew up a building or whatever. GROW UP.

This is the last time I'm going to say this but romantic comedies work to a successful formula which have worked well for seventy odd years and that is why they are successful, they are not going to change them and we certainly hope they don't so everyone please stop moaning for heavens sake. Maybe your action movies are a bit "same ol' same ol'" but do we slag them off to you? NO. So CAN IT.

Now my little rant and rave is over onto the film in question.

Sandra Bullock is in my opinion the greatest living comedy actress alive today. She is sexy and gifted and has the perfect talent and timing to easily take over the mantle of stars like Irene Dunne, Jean Arthur, Katherine Hepburn, Doris Day and more recently Meg Ryan as a true queen of Rom-Com.

It's my opinion that in fifty years time Sandra Bullock will be regarded as a screen great like the great actresses mentioned above. She has the ability to adapt between comedic and dramatic roles with perfect ease making us cry or laugh with equal vigour. I suppose she is almost like a female version of Cary Grant in that respect.

In Two Weeks Notice she is given so much chance to make us laugh and she fails to miss one of them. I especially like the part when she says she can also speak German and Japanese and then turns down an offer using both, followed by one of her rye giggles....hilarious and clever.

Hugh Grant, never really strays too far away from Hugh Grant but again as in the case of Ben Stiller and Adam Sandler this persona is what has made him a star and that is what he successfully does. It seems however that in this film he does it better than in any other film before.

It's a love story between a radical left wing lawyer (Bullock) and a capitalist, heartless tycoon (Grant).

He's been using her for her intellect and she has been using him and his money for her own charitable organizations, but when she decides to quit, the last two weeks sees their relationship change into something neither of them seem to want to part with.

The script is funny and fast paced and both are handed good comedy material to sink their teeth into. Hugh Grant is surrounded by beautiful women throughout the film giving him the opportunity to work his English charm school act, and with another sexy secretary in the picture, Bullock is given her opportunity to spar in her own inimitable way. The schoolyard type fight over the stapler is a great example and gut-wrenchingly funny.

An enjoyable film and one deserving pride of place on any DVD shelf. Incidentally check out the feature commentary between Bullock, Grant and Marc Lawrence. It's very funny and shows that the magic between them poured right off the film and leaked into real life.

As for one of the previous reviewers who referred to Sandra Bullock as FAT, I lay my gauntlet at your feet sir and it's pistols at ten. You may like her acting or loathe her, but fat she ain't.

Two Weeks Notice (2002)

Hugh Grant is funny. Sandra Bullock is funny. "Two Weeks Notice" takes full advantage of both, and for a warm, if someone canned, romantic comedy, it's enjoyable.

The premise is two-fold. First is the idea that Bullock makes herself indispensable as an assistant to an unbelievably demanding boss (an precursor of the more recent "The Devil Wears Prada" though in this case Grant is also a bit incompetent). Then she has to give notice she is quitting. This makes Grant desperate, which is always fun to watch.

The other premise is the feel-good part where a community center with history needs to be saved, somehow (an echo, perhaps, of "You've Got Mail"). Bullock is a do-gooder and a smart one, and she finds working with Grant has threatened her idealism. In fact, this is the deeper part of the movie, if still treated with typical easy going slightness. I mean, this is no serious commentary for sure, any more than "My Man Godfrey" will really change our views about unemployment in the depression. But it helps to have a cause to root for.

Most of all I came to love Bullock for her natural on-screen personality. She's so likable in her own offbeat way you come to support her view of the world automatically. And in this case that's a good thing, even if you also understand how Grant's character is both a jerk and a lovable misguided rich man. Grant of course is his own kind of natural, and the two are rather good on screen. They might not have chemistry, the way you'd want the screen to steam up, but they have energy or synergy together, more like the other Grant (Cary) and some of his counterparts did in the old days.

I'm tilting this review toward a feeling that this is a screwball comedy as in the the late 30s and early 40s, and in a way it is, though not nutty enough perhaps to really qualify. It does have the standard romantic comedy problem of two leads who would be great together if only a million things weren't standing in the way.

This movie gets weak reviews overall, but I liked it, and don't hesitate to recommend it as a thin but enjoyable comedy.

Sandra Bullock is one of my favourite actress's, I'll give any movie with her in a chance, and Hugh Grant is funny if given good material. So despite looking every inch the predictable romantic comedy, I expected to like this.

Plot In A Paragraph: Idealistic lawyer Lucy Kelton (Sandra Bullock) quits her job working for demanding corporate boss George Wade (Hugh Grant) But Soon realises she can't let go quite so easily.

Bullock and Grant have great chemistry (Their relationship reminded me of Arthur and Hobson from "Arthur" if Hobson had been a woman) and the first half of this movie is very enjoyable but midway through it sort of loses its way, as it heads towards its predictable climax.

Hugh Grant is in top form here, Bullocks's "Miss Cingenialty" co star Heather Burns has a role here, as is Grant's "Four Weddings & A Funeral" co-star David Haig, and Alicia Witt is fine too. As for Bullock

I'll admit from the off, that I am bias. I love her. With her gorgeous girl next door looks, I adore her, and will usually give anything she is in a chance. she remains one of the most talented and beautiful women in movies, and her ladylike sexiness is in rare supply. Any movie becomes promising just by having her name in it's cast.