Notting Hill is a 1999 romantic comedy directed by Roger Michell and written by Richard Curtis. Julia Roberts plays Anna Scott, a famous American actress. Hugh Grant plays William Thacker, who owns a travel book store in the Notting Hill district of London. The film runs 124 minutes.
Its tagline asks the whole question: “Can the most famous film star in the world fall for the man on the street?”
Trailer, via UniversalMoviesINTL.
A Spilled Juice and a Kiss
Anna walks into Will’s shop one day and buys a book. Minutes later he rounds a street corner with a juice for his colleague Martin and spills it on her. He takes her across the street to his flat so she can change. She kisses him on the way out.
Will is divorced. His wife left him for another man who resembles Harrison Ford. He shares the flat with Spike, played by Rhys Ifans, a flaky and sloppy Welshman.
Anna invites Will to the Ritz Hotel. There he is mistaken for a reporter and pushed into a press event for her new film. Asked who he writes for, he says Horse & Hound. She asks him to be her date at his sister Honey’s birthday party that evening. His friends and family are surprised. She gets on well with all of them.
The Restaurant Table and the Hotel Room
In a private neighbourhood park, she kisses him again. At a restaurant, Will and Anna overhear men at a nearby table discussing her. They praise her, then disparage her and equate actresses to prostitutes. He confronts them. She introduces herself and calmly insults the stunned men.
She invites him to her hotel room. Her movie star boyfriend, Jeff, has arrived from America without warning. Will leaves.
Over the next six months, his friends Max, Bella, Bernie and Tony arrange dates for him. He is heartsick over Anna and uninterested.
Then a distraught Anna turns up at his doorstep, hiding from a tabloid scandal. She apologises about Jeff and says the relationship is over.
Casting That Made It Work
Roberts was the “one and only” choice for Anna Scott, though Michell and producer Duncan Kenworthy did not expect her to accept. Her agent called the script “the best romantic comedy she had ever read.” Roberts said that after reading it she decided she was “going to have to do this.”
Grant was a unanimous pick. Michell said Grant is “one of the only actors who can speak Richard’s lines perfectly.”
The friends were assembled as a group:
- Hugh Bonneville as Bernie
- Tim McInnerny as Max
- Gina McKee as Bella
- Emma Chambers as Honey
- Rhys Ifans as Spike
Michell called the process “rather like assembling a family.” Sanjeev Bhaskar cameos as a loud restaurant patron. Omid Djalili cameos as the vendor who sells Will the juice. Mischa Barton plays the child actor Will interviews for Horse & Hound.
When you are casting a cabal of friends, you have to cast a balance of qualities, of types and of sensibilities.
Where It Lands
Notting Hill opened on 21 May 1999 in the United Kingdom through PolyGram Filmed Entertainment, and on 28 May 1999 in the United States through Universal Pictures. It was well received and became the highest-grossing British film of all time on release, a mark since eclipsed.
It drew three Golden Globe nominations at the 57th awards: Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy, Best Actress for Roberts and Best Actor for Grant. It earned two BAFTA nominations and won a British Comedy Award and a Brit Award for its soundtrack.
The published critical score is 6.8/10, and that is where this lands.
The premise does the heavy lifting, and it is a good one. A bookseller and the most famous actress alive, separated by everything except a street corner. Curtis writes the friends as a real group rather than a set of quirks, and Michell’s point about casting them all at once shows on screen.
What holds Notting Hill back is the middle. The six-month stretch of arranged dates tells us Will is heartsick without giving him anything to do about it. The Jeff problem resolves off screen. Anna’s tabloid scandal arrives as a plot device, not a consequence.
Roberts and Grant are the reason to watch. The scene where Anna dismantles the men at the restaurant is the film’s sharpest, because for once she gets to act instead of be adored.
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