Notting Hill

After reading the synopsis, 'Notting Hill' sounds like just another melodramatic Julia Roberts rom com. Fortunately, that ain't the case. 'Notting Hill' is fun, sweet, intelligent and … well, simply said, very entertaining. London's Notting Hill does seem like a street you'd like to walk on.

While the storyline itself is larger than life, the characters are real. There is no overt melodrama. We can see that Curtis put a lot of heart and some Brit wit humour into the writing. After meeting William, Anna, Spike, Max, Bella and Honey, we, as audience, really connect to these very interesting characters and care about them. The table discussion in Honey's birthday scene shows how all the characters connect. While a nervous Anna, is new to the group, we see that she eventually gets a hang of them and feels comfortable enough to talk about herself.

Hugh Grant isn't anything different from his other rom coms. Julia Roberts is brilliant. I never liked any of her romantic comedies (e.g. Pretty Woman, I Love Trouble, Something to Talk About etc) but 'notting Hill is an exception. She gives a subtle portrayal as hugely famous but very vulnerable Anna Scott and does full justice. This indeed is one of her finest performances. Rhys Ifans as Spike is standout! While Tim McInnerny, Emma Chambers, Hugh Bonneville and Gina McKee (love her) are excellent. McKee's comedy is extremely subtle and her character is one of the most appealing. She underplays her part with tremendous grace and maturity.

All the actors share a very warm chemistry that just keeps adding on to its quality. The relationship and friendship between the characters is shown in a very sensitive way. While Spike and William are roommates who just seem to get along, we know that they like each other. Also William is about to cancel a date with the world's most famous actress to attend his sister's birthday party. The relationship between Max and Bella is beautiful.

Additional credit must be given to Coulter's amazing cinematography and the visuals. Watch the scene where Thacker is walking through the market and we see the weather change (indicating the passing time). There's a beautiful soundtrack that recites the moods of the scenes. And last but not least, thanks to Roger Mitchell for putting it all together to tell us this sweet entertaining story.

Not usually impressed with Romantic Comedies, i found this one strangely compelling. It really was a nice movie, littered with great characters, especially Spike played by Rhys Ifans (Hilarious).

The story demonstrates to the extreme that love can occur between the most unlikely of people, and the humorous portrayal of this, is both touching and realistic. And i mean realistically created, not necessarily true realism.

Worthy of your attention, this well written romantic comedy is a must for fans of the genre and is a good gamble if your not.

8/10

This movie is almost entirely character driven and it is great. It's very funny, positive and enjoyable. The story is very simple - classic boy meets girl (or vice-versa) scenario. However, Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts' outstanding performances propel this movie to greatness.

Hugh Grant delivers one of his best 'average, humble' guy performances in this movie. Many of his lines were some of the most witty and clever dialog I've heard in a while. Almost reminds me of how Jimmy Stewart could mumble lines and come off as brilliant.

Julia Roberts was sparkling as a somewhat forward but grounded movie star that one could relate to. It was pleasant to see lots of big smiles from Julia.

The other characters were literally 'characters' - bizarre, off-beat, odd-ball, goofy - but at heart warm and enjoyable to watch.

If you're in the mood for a good laugh and pleasant movie-going experience, this is a great movie to watch.

Notting Hill is a district of west London that was built as a fashionable Victorian suburb, became very run down during the mid twentieth century and is now once again fashionable, but which retains a distinctly cosmopolitan atmosphere, with London's biggest street market and many small specialist shops. (My wife and I sometimes go there to shop for bargains). The hero of the film, William Thacker, is the owner of one of these shops, a travel bookshop. The film concerns the romance which develops between William and a young woman named Anna Scott whom he meets when she comes into his shop.

As another reviewer has pointed out, 'Notting Hill' is based around a theme, love between people of unequal social standing, which has provided literature with some of its greatest works, both comic and serious, dating back at least to the tale of King Cophetua and the beggar-maid. Although many of these stories tell of a poor but honest lad who aspires to the hand of a princess or titled lady, Anna is not part of the Royal Family or the British aristocracy. She rather belongs to an even more exclusive elite, the Hollywood starocracy. She is a hugely popular film star who earns at least $15,000,000 per film, and pops into William's shop during a brief stay in London to publicise her latest movie.

Although Anna is played by a real-life Hollywood superstar, Julia Roberts, the film is very typically British. William is similar to an number of other Hugh Grant characters, being a shy, diffident middle-class Englishman, probably public-school and university educated. (Despite this background, he is not particularly wealthy following a divorce from his first wife and is forced to share his lodgings with an eccentric Welsh flatmate, Spike). The humour of the film, particularly the dinner-party banter between William and his friends, is mostly of the typically ironic, self-deprecating variety popular in Britain, especially in middle-class circles. Rhys Ifans's Spike, by contrast, typifies another strand of British humour, the eccentric zaniness found in the likes of 'Monty Python'. Spike's strong provincial accent suggests a more working-class background; this possibly accounts for the teasing that he has to put up with from the other characters, although he takes it all in good part.

William may be diffident, self-deprecating and unsuccessful, but he is probably the stronger of the two main characters. Anna is beautiful and successful, but underneath it all she is insecure, worried about losing her fame and fortune and about her inability to form lasting relationships with men. Early on in the film she has another boyfriend, Jeff, but it is clear that he is only the latest in a long string of unsatisfactory romances which have left her emotionally (and in some cases physically) bruised. The scene where Anna says to William 'I'm just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her' is the one where we see her at her most vulnerable. Although both characters are in their late twenties or thirties, it is noteworthy that Anna refers to 'girl and boy' rather than 'woman and man'. Anna's vulnerability also comes through in her reaction in the scene where hordes of paparazzi appear on William's doorstep; William tries to play down the incident, and Spike finds it hugely amusing, but Anna is horrified. (The film was made shortly after the death of Princess Diana; this scene possibly reflects British disgust with the antics of the paparazzi, who were regarded as being partly to blame for the Princess's death). Like others, I found myself wondering how much Anna's personality reflects Julia Roberts's own; she too has had a number of unhappy relationships.

Important roles are also played by Tim McInnerny and Gina McKee as William's best friend Max and his disabled wife Bella; the love of this ordinary couple for each other provides a more realistic, down-to-earth counterpart to the fairy-tale romance of William and Anna, helping to anchor the film more firmly in reality. The main charm, however, lies in the relationship of the two main characters, as Anna comes to realise that the seemingly ordinary William has a kindness and decency which count for more than the monstrous egos of Jeff and his like. Like 'Four Weddings and a Funeral', which was also written by Richard Curtis and starred Hugh Grant, 'Notting Hill' is one of the warmest and most human British films of the nineties. 7/10

Romantic Comedy is my Second Favourite Genre in Movies following only Dramas. What is it that makes a great Rom-Com? Is it the chemistry between the Protagonists? Is it an unclichéd and non-banal script? Is it the Direction? Is it a mesmerising Soundtrack Or the enthralling Cinematography? Maybe it's a combination of all these. Notting Hill is one of those few which have all these ingredients to make for a great Rom-Com.

Notting Hill is the story of William Thacker, a diffident divorcee who lives in a house with a Blue Door and runs a not so lucrative Travel Book Shop in a small cheerful neighbourhood of London called Notting Hill. It is the story of his eventful rendezvous with the fabulous, ravishingly beautiful Anna Scott, a renowned American Actress and the love affair that ensues.

As William says in the movie 'Surreal, But Nice', is exactly how I'd describe my experience watching Notting Hill. It is one of those Movies which makes us believe in fateful encounters, in the enigmatic inexplicable appeal to which our very hearts tremble, in the aching separations and the exhilaratingly joyous 'Happily Ever After'. Some people might be of the opinion that these so called Rom-Coms though exquisite, portray an unrealistic affair, that the Writers conjuring such Fables live in Oblivion and not in the real world. To some extent this might be the hard truth. After all what are the chances of me running into Julia Roberts? Probably next to zero or, to be a hardcore realist, absolutely zero. These Movies might give false hope to the heartbroken or the lonely, but it is Hope nonetheless. Hope, that I might bump into a significant other while fetching for Orange Juice and that some people do spend their whole lives together. And that is what I'd prefer to believe. After all I am guilty of being the Hopeless Romantic.

What I like about the movie is that it isn't just some random Girl Meets Boy Story. Albeit being a Rom-Com, Roger Michell tries to dwell a little deeper into each character's Inhibitions, Hopes and their Psyche. The 'Last Brownie Scene' is a testament to the same. This very brief scene is my favourite from the movie. It portrays immaculately how each character on the table has their own Wins and Fiascos, Dreams and Inhibitions and how life never goes on as intended. As Bella very aptly says - 'C'est La Vie'.

'Hugh Grant' plays William Thacker while 'Julia Roberts' is Anna Scott. Their Chemistry is most coveted and undeniable on screen. 'Rhys Ifans' plays the eccentric roommate Spike and 'Gina McKee' plays Bella, among the troupe of Artists employed by Michell.

The enthralling Soundtrack is an anthology of Songs by various Artists which works flawlessly for each scene. My favourite among them being 'When You Say Nothing At All' by Ronan Keating.

In short, Notting Hill is an absolute delight to watch. It may not be the best Rom-Com out there, but it definitely is worthwhile.

A Review by - Mohammed Saood.

(A Joseph still awaiting his June)