NOTTING HILL (Universal) Starring: Julia Roberts, Hugh Grant, Rhys Ifans, Hugh Bonneville, Emma Chambers, Tim McInnerny, Gina McKee, James Dreyfuss. Screenplay: Richard Curtis. Producer: Duncan Kenworthy. Director: Roger Michell. MPAA Rating: PG-13 (adult themes, profanity) Running Time: 125 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
Not to be glib, but there are two very simple reasons why so many romantic comedies are so bad: 1) no romance; 2) no comedy. The structure is so simple it could be banged out by monkeys -- find two characters, put them together, introduce an obstacle, tear them apart, resolve the obstacle, bring them back together again. That's where every romantic comedy script begins, and sadly, that's also where most of them end. See, there's the not-so-small matter of creating two likeable characters whose pairing is as plausible as their separation, as well as entertaining the audience along the way to the foregone conclusion. When your audience is ready and willing to be charmed, a film's inability to generate wit or warmth is inexcusable.
NOTTING HILL, penned by FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL scribe Richard Curtis, does everything a romantic comedy needs to do right. Hugh Grant plays William Thacker, a London bookseller living a simple if vaguely lonely life. That life is promptly turned upside down when Anna Scott (Julia Roberts), the world's biggest female movie star, walks into his shop. Anna, the hounded subject of perpetual press coverage, is understandably guarded; William, though a bit dazzled, is understated in his treatment of the star. Though Anna finds William's absence of fawning unexpectedly appealing, plenty of barriers stand in the way of a potential relationship: famous boyfriends, paparazzi, geography and the uneasy way celebrities interact with laypeople.
The romantic side of NOTTING HILL works most effectively because Curtis and director Roger Michell (PERSUASION) allow it to develop in stages. Initially, Anna and William's attraction to one other is abstract. Anna is intrigued that William treats her with a degree of normalcy, and longs for the simpler life she sees in William's interaction with his group of friends; William, previously unlucky in love, is overwhelmed by the prospect of being desired by one of the world's most desirable women. The abstractions give way to a more personal understanding during a day spent together, which in turn give way to more concrete realization of the different worlds in which they live. Crackling with chemistry together, both stars give assured, engaging performances while still leaving a few rough edges -- Anna's prickly preoccupation with the perils of her fame, William's addiction to the "love heroin" of his romance with a star.
It's convenient that the writer who can put these romantic developments together is also one of the finest comedy writers working. Curtis -- a co-creator of both the wonderfully wordy "Blackadder" and the purely physical "Mr. Bean -- has always had an impressive comic range. Here he slides from the broad (Rhys Ifans as William's slovenly flatmate Spike) to the silly (William's fumbling efforts to climb into a fenced private garden) to the cleverly satirical (a film press junket William muddles through posing as a reporter from "Horse and Hound Magazine") with equal dexterity. The solid supporting cast, including Tim McInnerny, Hugh Bonneville and Emma Chambers, comes through with appealing work, but it's Curtis' wicked way with a line or a visual gag that keeps the comic energy high.
NOTTING HILL does make the mistake of clocking in at a heavy 125 minutes, dragging out its denouement to an unnecessarily tortuous degree. In fact, there are several occasions where the editing seems disjointed, with odd cutaways and dialogue beginning too early. The technical glitches are perhaps more notable in a film which spins its romance unabashedly into a confection that's pure Hollywood, and not just because one of the characters is a Hollywood star. This is romantic comedy in an old-fashioned sense, where the pleasures come more from a zestful staging than from foolish details like whether the relationship is "realistic." NOTTING HILL takes you to a slightly heightened reality, a place where movie magic moves you because it has found both the romance and the comedy in romantic comedy.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 star powers: 8.
Visit Scott Renshaw's Screening Room http://www.inconnect.com/~renshaw/ *** Subscribe to receive new reviews directly by email! See the Screening Room for details, or reply to this message with subject "Subscribe".
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews