Taglines: Can the most famous film star in the world fall for just an ordinary guy?
The most romantic notion in “Notting Hill” is that a Hollywood star of Julia Roberts’s wattage would be out alone browsing for a book. That’s what Ms. Roberts’s Anna Scott is doing when she notices that the store’s bashful proprietor is actually the most camera-ready sight on Portobello Road in London. So Anna takes a shine to Hugh Grant’s William Thacker (a character perhaps named by a bookseller in a hurry), and “Notting Hill” throws together two beaming if oddly matched leads. The movie has lots of glossy charm even if Ms. Roberts and Mr. Grant seem less like lovers than members of a support group for the desperately attractive.
The pedigree of “Notting Hill” promises intelligent panache. Directed by Roger Michell, whose “Persuasion” was the best of the Jane Austen cycle, it reunites Mr. Grant with Richard Curtis, the writer whose smart, sidelong witticisms are so well suited to the actor’s artful bumbling. Mr. Curtis reworks his “Four Weddings and a Funeral” to create another hapless dreamboat for Mr. Grant to play, another band of eccentric friends and another impossible crush to keep him charmingly flummoxed. To this, “Notting Hill” adds the been-there, done-that knowingness of two stars who can play a story about the outrages of celebrity without a stretch.
According to the screenplay, it is Anna who is extremely famous. And it is William who has been in the bookstore long enough to think Leonardo DiCaprio might be the name of an Italian director. (As in “You’ve Got Mail,” the picturesque neighborhood bookstore is presented as that oasis of gentility, the pop-culture-free zone.) But both Ms. Roberts and Mr. Grant rise to the chance to satirize the woes of international notoriety. If these two can’t create an illusion of mad ardor, they do something almost sexier: confide in the audience about the burdens of answering interviewers’ idiotic questions, embarrassing tabloid headlines and other occupational hazards of being a great-looking star.
For instance, both actors obviously enjoy a sequence in which William gets trapped at a press junket for Anna’s apparently terrible new film, which he hasn’t seen. He is forced to impersonate a reporter from the first publication he catches a glimpse of, Horse and Hound. And he is able to parrot the same kinds of questions that really get asked under such circumstances. (‘”Did you enjoy making the film? Any bit in particular?”) After squirming his way through this with a delightfully funny deadpan, William solemnly tells Anna: “Thank you. You are Horse and Hound’s favorite actress. You and Black Beauty. Tied.”
Ms. Roberts is conspicuously dressed in a man’s suit and necktie during this sequence, for her role is that of a power player, not a blushing ingenue. The film makes her a strong-minded movie queen well aware of her ability to call the shots. It’s she who sizes up William appraisingly, and it’s she who makes the first move; it’s he who looks a little alarmed during that first clinch. It’s also she who has a stellar personality that she can turn on or abandon at will.
This role gives Ms. Roberts a lovely opportunity to poke fun at her own situation, even if it also supposes that a famous star would like nothing better than the chance to smile wordlessly at a dinner party full of ordinary people. Unfortunately, it also saddles her with: “The fame thing isn’t real, you know. And don’t forget: I’m also just a girl. Standing in front of a boy. Asking him to love her.”
Luckily, “Notting Hill” doesn’t often strain that hard. Nor does it force its funny supporting cast into the annoying ubiquitousness that would have given it a sitcom flavor. Popping up just often enough to steal much of the movie is Rhys Ifans (who played a much more conventional role in “Dancing at Lughnasa”) as William’s disaster of a roommate.
A close-knit gang of William’s chums is colorfully played by Gina McKee, Tim McInnerny, and Hugh Bonneville as the yuppie who says to Anna, “I’m active in the stock market myself, so… really similar fields.” Emma Chambers plays William’s giddy sister, the kind of fan who has never met Anna before but just knows they could be best friends. And in a brief, hilarious cameo, Alec Baldwin plays Anna’s Hollywood boyfriend and makes it oh so clear why Notting Hill looks great by comparison.
Notting Hill (1999)
Directed by: Roger Michell
Starring: Julia Roberts, Hugh Grant, Hugh Bonneville, Emma Chambers, James Dreyfus, Rhys Ifans, Tim McInnerny, Gina McKee, Lorelei King, Mischa Barton
Screenplay by: Richard Curtis
Production Design by: Stuart Craig
Cinematography by: Michael Coulter
Film Editing by: Nick Moore
Costume Design by: Shuna Harwood
Set Decoration by: Stephenie McMillan
Art Direction by: Andrew Ackland-Snow, David Allday, John King
Music by: Trevor Jones
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for sexual content and brief strong language.
Distributed by: Universal Pictures
Release Date: May 21, 1999
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