Lucy Kelson is a frumpy, nervous, intelligent liberallawyer who specializes in historic preservation, environmental law, and pro bono causes in New York City. George Wade is an arrogant billionaire real estate developer and stylish womanizing playboy, who is also quite naïve. Lucy's hard work and devotion to others contrasts sharply with George's world-weary recklessness and greed. Lucy meets George in an attempt to stop the destruction of the Coney Islandcommunity center from her childhood. Discovering that she graduated from prestigious Harvard law school, he attempts to hire her to replace his old Chief Counsel, overlooking their opposing views of real estate development. She is willing to overlook it too—and his playboy tendencies—when he lures her in with the promise to protect the community center and an annual salary of $250,000 and other perks. She soon finds that what he really requires is advice in all aspects of his life. She becomes his indispensable aide, and he calls her for every little thing at all hours. At a friend's wedding, her cell phone loudly rings and disrupts the proceedings before she runs off answering his urgent page. When she discovers the "emergency" is he needs her advice on what to wear to an important event, she gets fed up and gives him her two weeks' notice of resignation. Yet, her departure is not so easy. Lucy looks for work at other firms, but every one says no because George has called in advance asking them not to hire her, so that he can keep her on. Eventually he gives in, and she offers to help him find a replacement, but the camera shows us that they are not entirely aware of how close and interdependent they have become: they act like an old married couple at a restaurant, able to simultaneously carry out a conversation while involuntarily exchanging food out of habit from knowing each other's food preferences. When the stylish and flirtatious June Carver shows up without an appointment seeking the position, Lucy speaks to her, but is concerned that June lacks real estate experience. When George sees June he is immediately attracted and is ready to hire her on the spot, with little regard for Lucy's concerns. Rather than look the other way and let her soon-to-be-former boss deal with the foolishness of his sexist hiring practices, Lucy instead becomes increasingly jealous and competitive with her replacement. When George invites June to be included to business social events that formerly would be just between George and Lucy, Lucy increasingly perceives the business events to be more like dates, and is angry that June is intruding on them. Lucy finds out that despite his promise, the community center is going to be knocked down and argues with George. She arrives at his hotel and finds June and George in his apartment in lingerie during a game of "strip chess". George sees that Lucy is hurt as she leaves. He confronts her the next day, her last day, saying that she must have feelings from what she saw the other night. Lucy, still upset about the community center, reminds him that he promised her to spare the community center and that she did not promise to sleep with him. George and Lucy have an argument after June and Lucy fight over a stapler. The argument ends when Lucy leaves after George tells her that she is a saint, making everyone else look bad because they are humans who make mistakes. After she is gone, George realizes that his time with her has really changed him. Meanwhile, in her new job, Lucy is missing him terribly. He goes in search for her and reveals he decided to keep his promise to her. Lucy rebuffs him but then chases after him and they declare their feelings. George reveals he resigned.
Two Weeks Notice received mixed reviews from critics. It holds a rating of 42% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 121 reviews. The site's consensus states: "Though Two Weeks Notice has nothing new to add to the crowded genre, Hugh Grant and Sandra Bullock make the movie a pleasant, if predictable, sit."
Box office
The film opened at No. 2 at the U.S. Box office, raking in USD14,328,494 in its opening weekend, behind . It had a total domestic gross of $93,354,851 and an overall gross of $199,043,242.
In the best-selling book on punctuation , the author Lynne Truss points out that the spelling of the film's title is grammatically incorrect because it is missing an apostrophe. The book's original hardcover edition featured Truss in her author's photo, glaring at the poster and holding a marker where the apostrophe should be.
