Two Weeks Notice is a 2002 American Romantic Comedy film written and directed by Marc Lawrence.
Philandering Millionaire Playboy George Wade (Hugh Grant) is the front man for a construction company. He hires Granola Girl lawyer Lucy Kelson (Sandra Bullock), who hates everything George stands for but agrees because it will save her hometown community center. Over the course of a year of working together he begins to rely on her more and more, until he cannot make a single decision without her input.
She realizes she's more of a nanny than a legal employee, and gives her titular resignation. But she can’t leave until she helps him hire a replacement. During this process Lucy meets June (Alicia Witt), the woman who’ll fill her shoes, and has second thoughts about leaving George.
Two Weeks Notice provides examples of:
- Armor-Piercing Response: When Lucy argues with George, he snaps at her that she's a saint and no one can stand to be around her because they don't want to be preached to and that saints are boring. She's stunned to silence and even George seems to hate to have said it to her.
- Above the Influence: Subverted. The extremely drunk Lucy gives George a kiss and possibly would have tried for more had she not passed out immediately after the kiss.
- All Girls Want Bad Boys: Lucy is, at first, horrified and annoyed by George and what he does, but over the course of working with him, she becomes rather fond of him and eventually falls for him when he keeps his end of the bargain and saves her community center.
- Back-to-Back Poster: One of the posters shows main characters George Wade and Lucy Kelso learning on each others' backs. It symbolizes how, while the two hate what each other stands for in the beginning, the two start to become extremely interdependent on each other as the story progresses.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: June. She seems sweet at first, but the more Lucy sees of her, the clearer it is that she's just trying to get into George's pants rather than being a good assistant.
- Brainy Brunette: Lucy is a highly intelligent brunette lawyer.
- Break Away Pop Hit: The Counting Crows cover of "Big Yellow Taxi" is probably much more well-known than this movie, where it debuted.
- Call-Back: Earlier, a drunk Lucy brags to George about her sexual prowess, saying she's ferocious like a bobcat and flexible like a pretzel, but passes out drunk soon after. At the end of the film, when they're a couple, he decides to bring it up again.George: I would very much like to discuss that whole bobcat-pretzel thing.
Lucy: Oh, I was just kidding. I'm allergic to bobcats, actually.
George: I'm very sorry to hear that.
Lucy: But I can do the pretzel.
George: That's excellent news.
- Deadpan Snarker: Lucy and George are prone to snarking, leading a lot of Snark-to-Snark Combat.
- Endearingly Dorky: Lucy to George, but especially when drunk.
- Flexibility Equals Sex Ability: While drunk, Lucy brags to George that she's a Sex Goddess due to being extremely flexible.Lucy: You should be so lucky because the lawyerly exterior... don't let that fool you because inside I am, like, a complete animal. It's, like, bobcat. You know, it's scary.
George: I can see that it might be.
Lucy: No. No. Look, I can bend like a pretzel. I'm serious. And I'm not talking the straight kind. I'm talking, like, the twisty kind. Twisty like the bobcat, salty type of pretzel. Because that's what men want, right?
George: That is their dream. - Flushing Toilet, Screaming Shower: George, to Howard. Howard knows him well enough to call him off as he's about to do it again.Howard: Why do you always find that so funny?
George: It's very hard to say. - Hello, Attorney!: Lucy, but not until she dresses up for the fancy event George is attending. The film never portrays her as unattractive, simply that she has no fashion sense whatsoever until she arrives in that stunning gown with her hair properly done.
- Girl Friday: Although Lucy's job really isn't this, she ends up being the classic Girl Friday for George.
- Green-Eyed Epiphany: Lucy doesn't start to notice she has romantic feelings for George until June shows up and starts monopolizing his time and flirting with him.
- Ladykiller in Love: The Casanova George ends up falling for Lucy
- Like an Old Married Couple: Lucy and George due to their constant bickering and Snark-to-Snark Combat.
- Messy Hair: Lucy, and the way it's cut isn't all that flattering either.
- Mistaken for Pregnant: George commits this while interviewing a job candidate, Polly. And later in the movie, they meet each other again. She remarks that now she's pregnant and he can congratulate her. George thinks that she's playing a trick on him, so he refuses to believe it. Thus she gets mad at him again.
- My Beloved Smother: Subverted. Though it's not shown in detail, Lucy mentions her mother's constant criticism of everything she does, a byproduct of which may be her tendency to stress eat.
- Necktie Leash: One of the posters features Lucy pulling George by his tie.
- Not What It Looks Like: Lucy manages to get her hair stuck on George belt in the men's restroom, leaving them to be found with Lucy on her knees with her head stuck on George's crotch, unable to get up.
- Opposites Attract: Lucy and George. She's an intelligent, competent lawyer who specializes in historic preservation, environmental law, and pro bono causes while he's is an arrogant and naive Millionaire Playboy. Somehow, they fall in love.
- Over-the-Shoulder Carry, George carries Lucy over his shoulder and walks through traffic to an RV so Lucy can use their bathroom. It's especially humiliating for Lucy, because she has dirt spots on the backside of her skirt from falling right before George picked her up.
- Potty Emergency: Lucy after the tennis match and chili dogs. And the cookies. And the...
- Protest by Obstruction: Lucy and some fellow advocates lay down in front of a building to avert its destruction.
- Race for Your Love: Lucy seems to reject George's apology and confession of love, but reconsiders and races down the street to catch up to him. Luckily, he hadn't gotten that far and the two embrace and kiss.
- Romantic False Lead: Lucy's replacement, June is a Love Interest to George that only exists to get in the way of the Official Couple.
- Saving the Orphanage: This is the reason Lucy agrees to work for Wade in the first place is to stop his company from tearing down a community center.
- Sexy Secretary: Lucy's eventual replacement, June, who turns out is a bit of a Gold Digger who just wants to get in George's pants.
- Strip Poker: Well, OK, technically June and George are playing strip chess.
- Tyop on the Cover / Wanton Cruelty to the Common Comma: Apparently this was the impetus for Lynne Truss to write Eats, Shoots & Leaves, a book about punctuation and the misuse thereof. She saw a poster for this film and noticed, to her horror, that there was no apostrophe after the word "weeks".
