# Notting Hill (1999)

### reviewed by
James Brundage

    Notting Hill

    Directed by Roger Mitchell

    Written by Richard Curtis

Starring Hugh Grant, Julia Roberts, and Rhys Ifans

    Cameo by Alec Baldwin

    As Reviewed by James Brundage

If there is one genre in Hollywood that is alive and kicking, it would have to be the Romantic Comedy. Let's face it, ever since its inception, Hollywood has always strived to make love funny instead of painful. Besides my standard quote of "so much for realism," this is fine by me. The romantic comedy formula, trite and tired as it may be, is a sure-fire way to make up your budget. It's not going to be a hit, but its going to be in the black.

         Goody for them.

Notting Hill is the latest of these low grade Hollywood romances that only teenagers find romantic, this one setting us in a bizarre universe of sorts (Notting Hill, London, England) where somewhere along the line Julia Roberts plays an actress (Anna Scott) who wins an Oscar. Is that a violation of the by-laws of the universe? Also in the film you have William Thacker (Hugh Grant), a humble bookkeeper. Of course, when Anna decides that she's going to get a book on Turkey, a bizarre relationship ensues.

For comic relief we have William's furball of a flatmate Spike (Rhys Ifans), who steals the show (and the comic performance) with one of the funniest character acting jobs you will ever see. You come away feeling sure that Spike is a complete and utter idiot… and has still just played you for a fool.

Notting Hill is blessed with the British comic wit of Richard Curtis (Four Weddings and a Funeral), who churns out a screenplay that is decently funny, somewhat romantic, and has enough twist on the norm to keep me awake. It has a plot that is formulaic to no end, but keeps an ironic twist on it as it seems to be on some level a take off of Henry James' "Wings of the Dove", of which a film version has just wrapped at the end of the movie.

Hugh Grant does a good jump of leaping back into romantic comedies despite the fact that he still has a reputation for wanting very unromantic liaisons… in West Hollywood. Julia Roberts sticks to my rule that when an actress plays an actress, you're only looking for trouble. I think she was better in the "Law & Order" episode.

The film, decently funny and somewhat romantic, falters when Richard Curtis tries to add in way too much plot. Let me be clear: the screenplay has no 3rd act. In place of a third act it spends its time trying to impress me with how deep it can go into a relationship. It tries to stay true to who the characters are, and ends up having a bloody, drawn out battle of a relationship with the duration of Vietnam.

It spends all of its time towards the end going back and forth in a drawn out romance that could have ended half an hour before it actually did, a true pain in the but for a film critic like me. In its effort to stay true to character, it scares away half the audience and cracks no good jokes in the meantime. But, hey, what does anyone care? By the end, the theatre is smiling, the girls are clutching boyfriends that really didn't like the movie, and people like me are groaning.

Yes, the romantic comedy is alive and well and kicking. It is trite, its fairly funny, and doesn't believe in the concept of plot twist… but its alive.

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