Notting Hill

NOTTING HILL
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 1999 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****):  *** 1/2

In an inspired bit of casting, Julia Roberts plays Julia Roberts in a princess and commoner story titled NOTTING HILL. Actually she uses the name of Anna Scott, but we all know it's Roberts playing Roberts.

As Anna Scott, Roberts plays an extremely attractive star who spends her life dodging photographers and making $15,000,000 a picture. Now, that's a real stretch for her. What's amazing is how likable and vulnerable she makes this poor little rich girl.

As exquisitely directed by Roger Michell and smartly scripted by Richard Curtis, the movie easily transcends its highly contrived setup. This is a comedic romance that makes you fall in love with love. And it's a romantic comedy that produces huge laughs through dialog that relies on wry wit rather than crude humor -- the polar opposite of THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY.

Starring opposite Roberts is Hugh Grant as William Thacker, the unassuming owner of a travel bookstore in a working class area of London known as Notting Hill. Grant is called upon to play an awkward guy who's shocked at his good fortune in having a movie star take an interest in him.

For Grant, acting's master of awkwardness, playing Thacker would seem as natural as it is for Roberts to play Scott. Indeed it is, but both actors rise above roles in which autopilot performances might have sufficed. Their chemistry is a joy to behold, and their acting has wonderful subtlety and grace.

As the movie opens, Thacker commutes his 1,000 yards to the office. A divorced man, whose wife left him for a bloke who looked like Harrison Ford, he get his pleasure from his happy, but fairly unsuccessful, relatives and neighbors.

This day fortune strikes and the famous Anna Scott comes into his store. Dumbstruck at first, finally he begins to babble and comes up with some naturally funny little lines. [I once had a similar experience in a small doctor's office in London in the 1970s, when Diana Rigg, the then enormously popular star of "The Avengers," sat four feet away from me. I know how Thacker must have felt.]

Luckily for him, he later rounds a street corner and clumsily spills orange juice all over her blouse. This causes her to go to his flat to change. When she leaves for what he assumes will be forever, he doesn't know quite what to say. "It was nice to meet you," he tells her in a daze. "Surreal, but nice."

This may already sound like every man's fantasy, and, if you're going to dream, dream big. When she comes over and plants a big kiss on him, I thought it might be a daydream sequence, but it wasn't.

"Probably best not to tell anyone about this," she admonishes him when leaving. "Right, no one," he responds with sad seriousness. "I mean, I'll tell myself sometime, but I won't believe it."

His irritating flatmate Spike is played in an over-the-top performance by Rhys Ifans. Spike, with his prominent gold tooth, uncombed hair, scruffy beard and perpetually dirty feet, supplies much of the movie's more outlandish humor. A little of Spike can go a long way, which the editor seems, thankfully, to have realized.

As you can guess, the acting princess does call the bookshop pauper back. This introduces the problem of where to take her for their first date. Perhaps something simple like tea at the Ritz?

In a case of mistaken identity, he is assumed to be at her hotel to see her as part of her movie's press junket. Soon he takes on the identity of a reporter from "Horse and Hound" magazine. After he speaks to her, he's forced to ask questions of all of the other stars. [Here in New York on a press junket myself for TARZAN, this scene hit home as well. I wonder if I could have used some of his questions?] At any rate, their meeting is less than perfect as Scott, dressed in a business suit and tie, apologizes for "that kissing thing."

>From this point their romance goes on and off. The players take the movie to a level that should not be possible given the triteness of the basic setup. Every scene, including the dinner with his family, comes across with incredible honesty and warmth. One suspects that if your brother brought Julia Roberts home to dinner it could well end up just as it does in the movie.

Still, it is hard having a relationship with someone who has ten-foot high pictures of her face painted on every bus in town, as they promote her latest film. Falling in love with someone this famous, Thacker says is like opening Pandora's Box. Think about it. If you've had a relationship with Julia Roberts, don't you think you'd have a bit of trouble trying to find someone else afterwards?

After scenes that are alternately sweet, funny, humorous, romantic and poignant, the story finally comes to a close. As you realize it's time for the characters to leave, you begin to miss them. The only question is how will the writer end the story. Coming up with the movie's most energetic moments, he ends it with an exhilarating sequence that dazzles your mind and heart.

One of the key scenes of the movie has Thacker opening the door of his apartment and being greeted by reporters who stick mikes in front of his face, shine lights in his eyes, and shove a camera lens in front of him. This happened to me the second I opened the door to exit the theater. A reporter wanted my opinion of the film.

Pointing out how similar this real life experience was to the scene in the movie, I asked where Julia Roberts was. He said she was in the lobby waiting for me. Life in this case, I am sad to report, did not imitate art.

NOTTING HILL runs 2:03 but feels much shorter. It is rated PG-13 for some sexual situations and a little profanity and would be fine for kids around 11 and up.

My son Jeffrey, aged 10, who saw the film back in California, said he really enjoyed it and gave it ***. He said he laughed a lot. His only complaints were that he didn't understand some of the humor, and he didn't like some of the bad language.

Email: Steve.Rhodes@InternetReviews.com Web: www.InternetReviews.com