Laws of Attraction Review
by Harvey S. Karten (harveycritic AT cs DOT com)June 1st, 2004
LAWS OF ATTRACTION
Reviewed by: Harvey S. Karten
Grade: B-
New Line Cinema
Directed by: Peter Howitt
Written by: Aline Brosh McKenna, story by McKenna
Cast: Pierce Brosnan, Julianne Moore, Parker Posey, Michael Sheen
Screened at: Disney, NYC, 4/27/04
Ninety percent of American adults get married at some time in their lives, and since marriage is the leading cause of divorce, it makes some sense for ambitious lawyers to specialize in matrimonial law. Considering all the contentious cases involving pretentious people that divorce lawyers (as they should more properly be called since the last thing they should want to do is encourage reconciliations) handle, one can but guess that the ten percent of people who do not get married in America are almost exclusively of that ignoble profession. For a pair of lawyers of the opposite sex fighting on different sides in the same courtroom even to consider the nuptial route with each other is about as likely as finding the leadership of Al Queda handing out lilies to American marines in Falluja. Yet this is exactly what happens in Peter Howitt's "Laws of Attraction," and if the coming together of two counselors, each undefeated in major cases, sounds unbelievable, I'd have to agree. In fact the biggest flaw of the movie, penned by Aline Brosh McKenna and Robert Harling from a story by McKenna is its lack of credibility.
Once we get past that serious issue–namely that Daniel Rafferty (Pierce Brosnan) and Audrey Woods (Julianne Moore) could find happiness in matrimonial union is beyond the pale-- we find that "Laws of Attraction" may not be "Adam's Rib," but the film has enough zingers to warrant a visit to the courtroom.
In the aforementioned "Adam's Rib," generally held to be the classic by which all similar stories can be judged, director George Cukor put forth a sophisticated comedy from the pen of Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin about husband and wife lawyers on opposing sides of the same attempted-murder case. One of the great comedies about the battle of the sexes is not exactly duplicated by Brosnan and Moore, but director Peter Howitt does punctuate an important subtext, which is that people going together or married who never argue are not folks to be envied. Passion can be felt in arguments as well as in loving embraces, and often the one is the opposite side of the coin of the other. In "Laws of Attraction," for example, the couple who battle each other the most–Serena (Parker Posey) and Thorne Jamison (Michael Sheen) set sparks flying in divorce court but later are reconciled, as expected, carrying fierceness from the chambers of matrimonial Judge Abramovitz (Nora Dunn) to the chambers of a bedroom in romantic Ireland. Their story, in fact, is the more interesting one.
The principal tale, though, involves a meeting between Daniel and Audrey in court, wherein Audrey, an uptight woman who never married and is not even dating is trumped by the laid-back Daniel whose thousand-dollar suits belie his hippieish character. When the two are again facing each other in court during the divorce proceedings of fashion designer Serena and rock musician Thorne, they get a chance to know each other better when (again: suspend disbelief) they fly together to Ireland to look into a castle well outside the Dublin-and-environs beaten path, a three million dollar structure that both Serena and Thorne are claiming. (Never mind that you can't find a decent co-op in Manhattan for 3 mil., but that's the assessed value of the structure) After an evening of drinking, they discover the following morning that somehow they had taken vows of marriage and, returning to New York, Audrey, but not Julian, is horrified enough to seek an immediate annulment.
Can you guess what happens? Brosnan gets a chance to strut his stuff and if compared to Spencer Tracy comes up short, but why compare? His role is the most likable in a story that has few such characters. As for Julian Moore, she is upstaged each time she finds herself in the same room as her adolescent-minded society mother, Sara Miller (Frances Fisher), a botoxed fifty-ish woman who's annoying but one you wouldn't mind having as a mother.
There's a fine side role for Nora Dunn as the judge whose pronouncements at the conclusion of the story show that even people of the robe can have a sense of humor.
Rated PG-13. 90 minutes.(c) 2004 by Harvey Karten at
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