Review: Two Weeks Notice
Mary Anne and I went to see Two Weeks Notice as a way to reduce pressure the night before her oral exam. Since I gather the movie sank without a trace in its first run, and since the last Hugh Grant movie I saw with Mary Anne was one of the few movies I've ever turned off in the middle, I was mildly apprehensive. And my timing had been off all evening—took much longer than expected to get to the hotel from the airport, then waited in the hotel lobby for a while, then when we called a cab we had to wait a long time for that. We figured we had just enough time for fast food for dinner, so we stopped at Wendy's—and had to wait 20 or 30 minutes in line there, as an overworked and inexperienced staff tried to deal with getting several orders straight for the two guys in front of us. So we barely made it to our seats in time.
But we did make it in time, and as it turned out, I needn't have worried about the movie's quality. It was totally charming, and, at least in places, very funny. It didn't, of course, transcend its genre, but it was a sterling example of what a romantic comedy can be.
The dialogue was particularly good through much of the movie: sharp, funny, on target and in character. The characters are charming and thoroughly likable: I've always liked Hugh Grant (really in everything I've seen him in, all the way back to Lairrrr of the White Wyrrrrrm, except for Mickey Blue Eyes and maybe Bitter Moon (the memories of the latter of which I've mercifully mostly repressed)), and though I didn't think I was fond of Sandra Bullock, I've now seen her in two romantic comedies and liked her a great deal in both, so I'll have to revise my opinion. And Robert Klein as Bullock's character's father was great. I felt there were a couple of mistakes—in particular, the extended bathroom-humor sequence in the middle felt very out of place to me—but overall an excellent movie, if you're not looking for Great Art.
Particularly if you were raised by hippies, like me; I like the politics in the movie, and (Spoiler alert!) I was very pleased that in the end, Bullock's character didn't compromise her ideals. (End spoiler alert.)
