Regretful Film Reviews

Just what are the laws of attraction (not to be confused with the Rules of Attraction, the Rules, or the Code)?

I'll tell you, dear reader, because this took a lot of figuring out. Apparently the secret connexion between the title of this film and its contents is that the principle characters are lawyers. Hence, the "Laws" of attraction!

And that is about as deep as this movie gets. Not that it needs to be deep. Hey, maybe viewers just want a simple laugh with popcorn once in a while, no brains required. Maybe viewers want to watch two highly famous actors, Julianne Moore and Pierce Brosnan, argue and flirt, and argue and flirt some more, and perhaps hit it off, and perhaps get married, and argue a lot more, and perhaps fall in love, and argue some more, because it's just so darned cute to see mature adults carry on like that!

But maybe, precisely because these two are such mature, seasoned actors we can allow ourselves expect more? If the romantic comedy genre must exist, and I think it does, then we might anticipate a variety of characters, represented by a variety of actors. Those on the bottom of the echelon can be stereotypical, for all I care. You know, hen I see a movie with an actor from Friends, I don't care if it's the same basic character, just with a different name. If Adam Sandler is in the billing, I'm not disappointed if it's the same old shtick. But Julianne Moore doesn't need to do their job. She should be above that.

Admittedly, this film had genuinely funny moments. But I saw a lot more moments that were obviously supposed to be humorous, but which depended upon the audience sacrificing an awful lot of their good sense in order to accept.

The plot and its many details are about as realistic as the First Wives' Club, and are apparently directed at the same demographic group. I hesitated to make such a cruel comparison, and almost did not type it. But that is the purpose of this website. FWC was perhaps my first glimpse at full-bore stupidity in the guise of a narrative about intelligent women.

The story: Julianne Moore, doing her best Andy McDowell simple-country-girl accent, has ever lived in the shadow of her socialite mother, Frances Fisher, who is doing her best Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy-Onassis accent. This actress, by the way, was the evil, selfish mother of Kate Winslet in Titanic, but now she is the doting, "go gettim' girl" mother of Moore, who is only a few years younger in real life. (Funny: that Jackie-O accent comparison arrived at to me by my own analysis, before I saw her filmography. Take a look at #11.) Anyway, Moore is a an anal-retentive divorce attourney who is serious about breaking up marriages when it becomes clear that they are finished. Pierce Brosnan is an apparently scatterbrained divorce attourney who becomes her opponent.

Brosnan's character is inexplicable. We have no indication of where his motivations come from, or whether he believes anything he actually says. He is sort of like Wally in the Dilbert comic strip. You know, the middle-aged loser with deplorable social mores, who gets his thrills taking advantage of everyone else. But there is a twist somewhere, at which point Brosnan becomes likeable. No reason given, mind you. He claims to be in love at one or two points, and we wonder, Is he really? How would we know? How would he know?

The answer: it doesn't matter. It's Pierce Brosnan, and the women are all sucked in by this point by his devastating looks, despite everything else.

The deepest indication of his character is that he seems to prefer patching up a broken marriage rather than purusing divorce. And since that was the focal point of George Clooney's character in Intolerable Cruelty, all I can say is, there is little originality here.

(Side note: I am not accusing anyone of plagiarism. But I have noticed an awful lot of movies in the past two years with repeated themes, or even complete scenes borrowed from one another. Or at least gimmics. See a gimmic once and it's "fresh". See it again in a movie made at the same time, + or - 6 months, and something is fishy. See my upcoming postings on some very regrettable films, Cradle 2 the Grave and Bad Boys 2. Why is this? Is it just the coincidence of cultural streams, or is there a lot of saliva being swapped in Hollywood writers' workshops?)

The worst part of this film is the fact-finding junket that both Moore and Brosnan take, flying to Ireland. The landscape is predictably beautiful, and the milieu is sufficiently romantic enough for the emotional mishaps that are supposed to take place. But the Irish are pitilessly ridiculed here. You would think this was made back in the 1950s, when it was okay to paint an entire nationality with one brush, making them all buffoons. For those who would enjoy the scenery but want a romantic comedy that is not so insulting, I recommend The Englishman who Went up a Hill and Came Down a Mountain.

The characters whom they are ostensibly divorcing are horrible. One is supposed to be a British rockah; his wife is supposed to be a highly successful clothing designer. Fine, that's not bad writing. The dude is seen in concert, spitting out Satan Metal, but generally he's a nice guy who just can't keep his pants zipped up. The woman who plays his wife is one of the worst acts I've seen in a long time. Hardly convincing. Must be a struggling actress's first time....

Geez louise, it's Parker Posey! What the **** happened here?!

The flow is not unified; it is mostly just a series of gags. Did you buy that one? Okay, so you'll buy this one. Did she really drink that? Okay, so you will laugh when she is making others drink it later on.

One nagging question remained for me at the end. I know it is not so crucial, but I just want to see if anyone else noticed it. At one point, Audrey Woods' mother, Sara Miller, says that she had to pull a big favour with her friends. She's admitting that she was responsible for something that happened a little bit earlier in the story. At the moment, this something was perceived as a crisis, but it later led to the Audrey and Daniel romantic leads to do something drastic. Audrey, and presumably the audience, finds this stunt cute and caring. I had to wonder, though, if the consequences were really all that good in retrospect. Why didn't Audrey react in fury, "Do you know how much trouble you have caused me?!" But somehow she thinks it is all fine. Why?

Because it's just so darned cute to see mature adults carry on like that.