Laws of Attraction Movie Review

There is one hard and fast truth in this world that a number of us have rebelled against, refusing to believe it with all our heart and soul. We have tried to move heaven and earth to make it not so, but it must be confronted, no matter how much pain and strife it may cause. It may wound us to our very souls, but we must face the harsh reality of it, and try to soldier forth in this life as best we can.

Julianne Moore cannot do comedy.

One of the finest actresses of her generation, a consummate stage and screen siren who can reduce grown men to weeping masses, Julianne Moore is, sadly, not a very good comedic actress. In fact, she is a rather bad one – harsh words, I know, but I myself have been in self-denial for years, and Laws of Attraction, a misbegotten romantic comedy that yearns to be Adam's Rib but comes out somewhere along the lines of Just Married, was the final wake-up call I needed. This red-haired beauty, who I have worshipped from afar in movies ranging from Vanya on 42nd Street to The Hours, is awkward and just plain not right when it comes to doing comedy. I'm sorry, but it's true.

Which is not to say that she can't be funny. Anyone who remembers Amber Waves from Boogie Nights and the way Moore segued from warm den mother to wooden porn actress knows her timing can be faultless and her delivery superb. Even in Magnolia, she turned one of the movie's most throwaway lines – "Now you must really shut the fuck up," – into a surprise, spontaneous laugh. And her performance in An Ideal Husband showed her to be a consummate expert at Oscar Wilde's arch world of farce. But those movies never required her to make a spectacularly hilarious fall, banter rat-a-tat-tat like Rosalind Russell and Cary Grant, turn comic tics into expressions of character, or make falling in love seem like the funniest thing in the world. All of these things she's called upon to do in Laws of Attraction, and, well… the best that can be said is that she's not up to the task.

Then again, the screenplay and direction of Laws of Attraction do not do Moore and her co-star, the suave Pierce Brosnan, any favors. A comedy about two divorce lawyers who ultimately fall in love, the movie strives most obviously for echoes of Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, bounces about with the light, chaste chemistry of Doris Day and Rock Hudson, and eventually winds up in Ashton Kutcher-Brittany Murphy territory. Trafficking in the humiliation-as-flirtation route that was the hallmark of all Tracy-Hepburn rom-coms, it's surprisingly prim about the attraction of its two stars, and aside from two nights of wild passion (all offscreen, naturally), it's about as sexual as something like Pillow Talk. And the structuring and dialogue of the movie, elementary and unintelligent, makes this seem like something that awkward twentysomethings should be engaging in, not sophisticated adults. Laws of Attraction feels like the follow-up to Just Married, only with better decorated apartments.

Audrey Woods (Moore) is a stereotypically driven working woman, who wears her hair in a bun and favors meticulous business suits, and has forsaken any hope of marriage for a successful law career, much to the consternation of her Botox-hooked mother (Frances Fisher, who in real life is only eight years older than Moore). Sublimating her stress and, it's implied, sexual frustration via junk food (in carefully crafted product placements), Audrey finally meets her match in the "bohemian" Daniel Rafferty (Brosnan), who's given to showing up in court disheveled (with unmatching socks) and proceeding with arguments as outlandish and spontaneous as Audrey's are logical and thought-out. Before barely even establishing a rapport, they've drunkenly fallen into bed together, but find themselves on the opposite sides of a case involving a wild rock star (Michael Sheen) and his designer wife (Parker Posey, truly awful). A trip to Ireland, to check out the castle both spouses want in the divorce settlement, leads to Irish whimsy, much drink, a spontaneous wedding and a hell of a hangover. To keep from being the legal laughingstock of Manhattan, they keep up a charade of marriage while proceeding with the divorce case. Hijinks, tinkly falling-in-love music, and a contrived stumbling block ensue.

As mentioned before, Moore's given nothing to work with, and it sadly shows. Brosnan's given a tiny bit more – Daniel's a bit of a character, which is at least a shred more than Audrey is – but wearing a great pair of jeans and flashing a sexy grin will only get you so far. Both actors obviously respect each other (alas, they obviously don't adore each other either) but their lack of chemistry is heightened by the sparks they show with other characters. Sheen plays a caricature of a rock star, but his first meeting with Moore results in one of the movie's best lines ("I like strawberry shortcake") that in context is one of the few spontaneously funny things in the movie. And when Brosnan meets up finally with the sleek, smooth Fisher, their ten seconds of banter makes you yearn for a much better movie. ("Are you really 56?" he asks. "Well, parts of me are," she murmurs.) Then again, Laws of Attraction barely adds up to a movie itself, running under 90 minutes, most of which are given over to tedious montages that, in their desire to speed up the action, only rob the movie of any humor or energy. It's like the movie version of a legal brief – all summation, no action. Where's a real lawyer when you need one?