NOTTING HILL
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Capsule: Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant, two
actors who tread the line between over-abundant
charm and the cloying saccharine star in a
princess-commoner love story from England. Can the
most popular actress in the world find happiness
with a handsome but modest bookstore owner with
Hugh Grant's callow good looks? The film has a few
nice sparks of wit but never really catches on
fire. Rating: 5 (0 to 10), high 0 (-4 to +4).
The plot of NOTTING HILL is simple enough. William Thacker (played by Hugh Grant) is the handsome owner of a small and failing travel bookstore. He had a marriage that failed. And now he lives with a self-absorbed troglodyte of a housemate named Spike (Rhys Ifans). Spike is rude, stupid, and completely impossible to live with. Into William's shop one day comes Anne Scott (Julia Roberts). Scott is sort of a combination of Meryl Streep, Gwyneth Paltrow, Emma Thompson, and, yes, even Julia Roberts. Her face is plastered on double-decker busses all over London. After the requisite shaky start, Anne and William begin to date and go through some predictable comedic situations. What happens when a luckless bachelor comes to dinner at a friend's house with his date of the evening, one of the world's most glamorous movie stars? (There is a somewhat similar and considerably funnier sequence in MY FAVORITE YEAR.) What happens when a man thinking that he is going on a date finds that it really is a press publicity junket for a film and for some reason he pretends he is there to interview the star? The latter sequence goes on much longer than need be and eventually outstays its welcome.
I have liked my share of romantic comedies, but NOTTING HILL just never really catches on for me. Perhaps the two leads seem just too charming and empty. Hugh Grant's boyish stuttering as he finds almost the right words is growing tiresome. And Julia Roberts has such a wide infectious smile from back molar to shining back molar. I wonder if she needed surgery to stretch that grin. Their dialog ranges from serious to cute to attempted cute. The film could have had a perceptive look contrasting how the super-famous and the unknown see the world differently, but NOTTING HILL rarely rises to that occasion. Much of the humorous dialog seems borrowed from "Seinfeld" with Spike standing in for Kramer. ("I once saw Ringo Starr. Or it might have been Topol." "But they don't look even remotely alike." "Well, he was standing too far away.") There are certainly places the film just does not ring true. The giant film that actress Anne Scott is currently starring in appears to be on the level of GALAXINA, a film that would be unlikely to have a big $15,000,000 star. The script is by Richard Curtis who has mostly written scripts for Rowan Atkinson playing either Blackadder or Bean. Curtis did write FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL and now has returned to Hugh Grant territory. But FOUR WEDDINGS had much more human drama mixed in with the comedy.
Director Roger Michell is probably best known for PURSUASION. Here he seems to be depending a bit much on the star power of his two major actors. Too frequently he allows the camera to lovingly just take in Julia Roberts while she just stands with a wide smile. He is apparently hoping that her magic and allure will just effortlessly win over the audience. Even Roberts does not look that good. Just a little cuter is Hugh Grant as he boyishly stammers and says the unexpected while he tries too hard to express himself. But really as is often the case, many of the background characters are of greater interest than those in the foreground. William's circle of friends are more interesting characters with a more real set of problems than the principals. (How frequently are major characters in American films bound to wheelchairs?) The film has one sequence in which William visits Anne on a production set and just to see the circus that is required to make a film makes this the most interesting sequence in the film.
NOTTING HILL tries to return to the territory of FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL, but never manages to capture the same romantic spark. I would give it a 5 on the 0 to 10 scale and a high 0 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
mleeper@lucent.com
Copyright 1999 Mark R. Leeper
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