Laws of Attraction

This topic contains:

• overall comments and recommendations
• details about Laws of Attraction's classification and consumer advice lines
• a review of Laws of Attraction completed by Young Media Australia (YMA) on 19 July 2004.

Overall comments and recommendations

Laws of Attraction is a fairly light hearted romantic comedy. There are quite a few laughs aimed at adults, but Brosnan’s character as the dishevelled, shallow lawyer who actually believes in marriage is unconvincing.

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) and the associated consumer advice lines.

YMA review

This review of the movie Laws of Attraction contains the following information:

• a synopsis of the story
• use of violence
• material that may scare children
• sexual references
• nudity and sexual activity
• use of substances
• coarse language
• the movie's message

A synopsis of the story

Audrey Woods is a highly successful, divorce attorney who came first in her class at Yale. She has achieved this by focussing on her career, to the exclusion of forming any relationships with men. When she meets Daniel Lafferty, a self assured, laid back, divorce lawyer, she takes an immediate dislike to him. This increases when Rafferty wins the Harrison case, defending the husband of her client. However Lafferty quite likes Woods and goes out of his way to win her over. Audrey thinks she can manipulate Rafferty so she goes to his house to see him. They drink too much and end up in bed together much to Audrey’s disgust.

They again both represent another husband and wife, Serena and Thorne Jamison. Serena is an insecure dress designer, married to punk rocker Thorne. Serena wants her share of ‘Castle Rock’, an Irish castle the couple had bought in happier times. Lafferty and Woods both travel to Ireland to see the castle and while there, they attend a festival celebrating a local legend of the village. Again they both drink too much and end up in bed together, but this time find themselves with daisy chain rings on their wedding fingers and realise they must have unwittingly tied the knot.

Daniel is quite happy with this arrangement but Audrey is not so pleased. However for the sake of their careers, Audrey agrees to give it a go and ends up falling in love with Daniel. However when they discover that the marriage wasn’t in fact real they then have to decide whether they want to stay together. The two of them still have to battle over the Jamison divorce which turns out not quite as planned.

Use of violence

Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.

Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.

There is no violence in this movie but Audrey’s mother is shown with very bruised eyes after using botox.

Material that may scare children

Children under eight are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations, the death of a parent or child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters.

Children aged eight to thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic threats and dangers, violence or threat of violence and / or stories in which children are hurt or threatened

Children over the age of thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic physical harm or threats, molestation or sexual assault and / or threats from aliens or the occult.

There is nothing particularly scary in this movie.

Sexual references

There are several sexual references in this movie:

• In the Harrison case Mrs Harrison is accused of needing treatment for sexual addiction
• Audrey tells Rafferty that there’s no ‘psychoanalysis shortcut into her pants’.
• Rafferty produces Audrey’s knickers in court with a statement written on them.
• Audrey talks about the lawyers she’s banged.
• Quite a bit of talk of cutting men’s balls off
• Thorne is accused of going after whores and strippers
• Thorne accuses Serena of ‘pumping’ the gardener

Nudity and sexual activity

• Daniel and Audrey sleep together on a few occasions—nothing is actually shown
• Audrey walks in on Serena and Thorne having sex. Again nothing is actually shown.

Use of substances

• There’s plenty of drinking in this movie with the consequence that Audrey has sex with Daniel without really wanting to. They also ‘get married’ without knowing it while very drunk.
• Thorne says that Serena ‘may have been on drugs at that point’.

Coarse language

There is occasional use of the following:

• bastard
• arsehole
• goddam
• arse
• bullshit.

The movie's message

The take home message is probably that drinking too much can make you do things you might regret.

Values parents may wish to discourage include:

• manipulation of others
• mean spiritedness
• drinking excessively is fun.