At last we have an answer to Jackson Browne's musical question: "Am I the only one who hears the screams and the strangled cries of lawyers in love?"

		'Laws of Attraction' Rating: PG-13 for sexual content and language Starring: Julianne Moore, Pierce Brosnan, Parker Posey, Frances Fisher Director: Peter Howitt

In the movie "Laws of Attraction" these aren't just any attorneys doing the old romantic-comedy soft-shoe -- you know, the one that goes, "I despise you so much that I can't think about anyone else and I can't wait until we have mad, passionate sex so I can hate myself in the morning."

Daniel Rafferty (Pierce Brosnan) and Audrey Woods (Julianne Moore) are divorce lawyers. Not only do they know how thin is the line between love and hate, they prance across it like the Flying Wallendas walking a tightrope, usually with millions of dollars at stake.

We've seen and heard it all before, too, in movies as good as "Adam's Rib" (about married lawyers), as bitter as "The War of the Roses" (about divorcing antagonists) and as darkly comic as "Intolerable Cruelty" (about a golddigger targeting a divorce attorney). "Laws of Attraction," its screenplay by Aline Brosh McKenna and Robert Harling, follows a standard blueprint. You shouldn't feel any suspense as to the eventual outcome of the Rafferty-Woods relationship.

But the problem is that this is an unfair fight from the very beginning.

Audrey Woods is supposed to be so good at her job that she's never lost a case. Sure, that might make her haughty and complacent, especially when she meets Rafferty and he looks like something the cat threw up. Naturally, the Columbo ploy works -- he introduces two pieces of evidence that make her look unprepared and amateurish. Just one more thing: He's never lost, either.

Audrey never really recovers. She feels so humiliated and angry that all she wants to do is one-up him right back. This only makes her even more vulnerable to Rafferty's calm competence and her own tendency to turn into a flibbertigibbet. She stumbles around, giggles nervously and exudes insecurity, especially in the vicinity of her randy socialite mother (Frances Fisher), who feels completely comfortable in her own skin or whatever her cosmetic surgeon can provide.

So does Rafferty, whose scruffiness vanishes almost as quickly as Audrey's confidence. As mother has pointed out, he's really cute.

The screams and strangled cries, it turns out, are mostly hers. Rafferty, as smooth and straight as Irish whiskey, acknowledges what she can never admit -- that he really loves her (and seldom has fate so conspired to throw a couple together). Naturally, it happens just as the two of them take opposite sides in a celebrity divorce case involving a wiggy rock star (Michael Sheen) and his pouty designer wife (Parker Posey).

I can understand Rafferty's attraction to this redheaded beauty. I relish Julianne Moore for her looks and especially for her acting skills as delineated in "Boogie Nights," "Magnolia," "Far From Heaven" and "The Hours." She's appeared in movies sprinkled with humor, including "The Big Lebowski" and the wonderfully arch "An Ideal Husband." But she's rarely done a straight comedy, much less one so conventional as "Laws of Attraction." Her performance leads me to believe that the genre doesn't play to her strength.

Brosnan, in contrast, makes it look easy. He's a charmer, no doubt about it (except when Daniel fights dirty in the courtroom), which only adds to the imbalance between the characters. In the supporting roles, Sheen and Posey are perfect as a pair of rich spoiled brats and Fisher breathes life into what could have been the most cliched of roles.

As is his wont, director Peter Howitt ("Sliding Doors") gives the film a glossy coat of watchability and keeps the film moving along, complete with occasional moments just outrageous enough to be funny (usually involving the young rockers). If only it were going somewhere new, or at least on a level playing field.