Notting Hill (1999)

reviewed by
Brian Takeshita


NOTTING HILL
A Film Review by Brian Takeshita
Rating:  *** out of ****

In Roger Michell's romantic comedy NOTTING HILL, William Thacker (Hugh Grant) leads a rather dreary life maintaining his flagging travel bookshop in the quaint section of London which lends it's name to the film's title. One day, American movie superstar Anna Scott (Julia Roberts) walks in to purchase a book on Turkey. Quickly enamored of each other, the two embark upon an on-again, off-again love affair replete with romance, humor, and the occasional lump in the throat.

The film opens with a non-verbal cue to Anna's stardom as the title credits appear over a montage of slow motion sequences featuring the actress's appearances in films and at premieres - coming out of limousines, walking the red carpets and such. Without words, this sequence gives us a background to her character. Following, however, is a set-up narration by William indicating what he does and where he lives. I don't know why the filmmakers chose to go with a narration which tells us nothing we couldn't have figured out by watching the first ten minutes of film, and which never resurfaces after the movie's beginning, but there it is. If there were ever a clear case for "less is more," this would be it.

The film is told nearly first person from William's point of view, as he is in every scene. By nature of this arrangement, we get a very definite sense of what he is all about, and his nice guy personality wins us over easily. In fact, much of NOTTING HILL's strength lies in the great dialog written for this character by Richard Curtis. A scene where William is still in shock over the fact that he's even talking to a silver screen goddess is made golden by the way bumbles through his attempt to offer her some honey-soaked apricots from his refrigerator. Or take an instance where Anna kisses William and asks him never to tell anyone for fear of the incident hurting her image. William assures her he wouldn't say a word, then adds, "Well, I'll probably tell myself now and then, but I'd never believe it." Great stuff.

The downside to spending so much time with William is that we don't get to see enough of Anna to make their relationship whole and plausible. We're constantly exposed to William's thoughts, feelings, actions and desires, but don't actually get the sense of how much Anna really feels for him. There are a couple of instances where she declares her obvious interest, but they nearly come out of nowhere due to the fact that we're not sure what she's been thinking all the times in between. This, combined with the sheer iniquity of screen time between the two, makes this Hugh Grant's film hands down. He gets the great scenes (look for one in which he has to portray an interviewer from Horse and Hound magazine in order to speak with Anna), the great lines, and gives an overall wonderful performance. Julia Roberts fans will probably be disappointed by the actress's top billing and subsequent lack of involvement in the film (ala Sandra Bullock in A TIME TO KILL) along with her detached performance which is only worsened by her character's unpredictable behavior. Anna doesn't get a lot of our compassion.

This romantic comedy leans a little more toward the comedy than the romance, much of it supplied by Grant himself, but with considerable help from the supporting cast. Most notable is Rhys Ifans as Spike, William's eccentric roommate, who is in the film for no other purpose than to make us laugh. Hugh Bonneville, Emma Chambers, James Dreyfus, and Gina McKee bring up the guard as William's friends and family, particularly shining in a scene where William brings Anna to his sister's birthday dinner, and we get to see how these common folks react to the presence of a movie star in their midst. It's a scene most of us will probably think would play out in our own living rooms were we faced with a similar situation.

Roger Michell's use of visuals doesn't sweep us off our feet, but does give us more than your typical movie of this type. For example, there are a couple of instances in this film where large amounts of time pass. Whereas some films are content to simply put in a caption saying "eight months later," Michell presents us with more interesting cues, such as William's walk though his neighborhood while the seasons change around him. Another memorable shot occurs in a park where the camera is lifted from ground level to a couple of hundred feet in the air. We're generally used to scenes where our point of view is lifted from the earth to treetop level or so, but in this case, the camera just keeps going up and up until we have a bird's eye view of the ground below.

Music is used rather glaringly as an enhancement to many of the film's scenes, and some of this might have been better toned down, but in other areas it works to full effect. It's kind of a mixed bag, but still fares better than many of today's lighthearted movies which are so influenced by the MTV fare that the film becomes one long music video. At least this film has some pretty good music that for the most part remains relevant and appropriate.

NOTTING HILL's Grant and Roberts will not go down in history as one of the all-time greatest film pairings, but the chemistry is decent and the comedic aspects of the movie more than make up for it. For a couple of hours, you should expect to laugh more than cry, and that's not so bad, now is it?

Review posted May 31, 1999

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