Laws of Attraction: Movie, DVD Review

Directed by Peter Howitt, written by Aline Brosh McKenna and Robert Harling, 90 minutes, rated PG-13.

(Originally published 2004)

Sometimes in the movies, the laws of attraction can only lead to a misdemeanor.

You know it when you see it. Either not enough attention was paid to the script, the situations are rife with implausibilities, or there’s no chemistry between the primary love interests.

All of that’s true in “The Laws of Attraction,” a thin romantic comedy from director Peter Howitt (“Sliding Doors,” “Johnny English”) whose likable co-stars are so poorly mismatched, they can’t save the picture from being a disappointing piece of middling mediocrity.

As written by Aline Brosh McKenna and Robert Harling, the film stars Julianne Moore and Pierce Brosnan as Audrey Woods and Daniel Rafferty, two good-looking, high-powered divorce attorneys who have never lost a case, have nothing but initial malice toward each other, yet who naturally enter into a relationship because the movie requires them to.

The film wants to recall George Cukor’s “Adam’s Rib,” the superior, 1949 classic starring Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy as married attorneys fighting opposing sides of a murder case. Genuine sparks flew between those two real-life lovers, but in “Attraction,” which swirls around a star-studded divorce trial, Moore and Brosnan bring the sort of heat you’d expect from two flirting first cousins fresh out of a southern backwater.

The film is something of a throwback, lamely trying for the same sort of rapid-fire dialogue that ignited the works of Cukor and Billy Wilder, but which doesn’t work here. The writing is too wordy, the wit is too strained, and the resulting movie comes off like an awkward museum piece.

But not a total failure. “The Laws of Attraction” is peculiar in that works best if you view it along its periphery--its supporting cast is so strong, in fact, that they generate what interest the movie has.

Frances Fisher, in particular, is especially strong and funny in her scene-stealing turn as Audrey’s mother, Sara—a hip, 57-year-old woman still keeping it real with the help of a little Botox, an unruly workout routine, and frequent fat injections in her lips. She’s loose and appealing, but never comes off as caricature. Better yet, she looks as if she came to have fun, which is key, helping her to get the biggest laughs in the movie.

Also giving the film a boost are Parker Posey as dazed, combative fashionista Serena and her punk rock husband, Thorne (Michael Sheen), who wears more eyeliner than a ‘30s movie starlet. Together, they’re sleazy, unbridled animals, trying their best to tear up a movie that would have been completely neutered without them in it.

Grade: C-