Romantic, Funny, Easy on The Eye - Top Man or Top Film?? (Notting Hill (DVD))

Member Name: sdean

Product:	Notting Hill (DVD)
Date:	23/03/09 (147 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great film, predictable, but watchable !

Disadvantages: None !

This movie was shown on British TV at the weekend, and what a lovely memory it was. I saw this movie on its release and have not seen it since, so it was greatly enjoyed.

~Who?~

The lovely Richard Curtis wrote this movie while Roger Mitchell directed.

Hugh Grant - Will Thacker
Julia Roberts - Anna Scott
Rhys Ifans - Spike
James Dreyfus - Martin
Dylan Moran - Rufus the Thief

~The Plot~

Anna Scott is the most famous movie star in the world who changes young William's life when she walks in to his bookshop.
William lives in Notting Hill. 5 minutes away is his travel bookshop, he meets Anna Scott and is speechless (Hugh Grant does this well!!). Later on his literally bumps into her and spills orange juice all over her, but he convinces her to change in his house. Anna kisses him. She then vanishes and turns up again when the press are hounding her because of a video. Anna has the world at her feet and can have anyone she wants, does she really want Hugh Grant from Notting Hill?

~ The Verdict~

If you have not seen this, you are missing out. Richard Curtis has written another romantic masterpiece, along the lines of Four Weddings and similar to all the other Hugh Grant films out there, but it looks at the role of celebrity, whether you would be able to handle it. You have lots of romantic guff which would never happen in real life and only ever exists in a movie, but it is very watchable Julia Roberts is perfect as Anna Scott and plays the humble actress well. Hugh Grant was born for these parts, so no catastrophe there. James Dreyfus is brilliant as Hugh's employee, and there are a whole host of brilliant British actors as 'William's 'friends as per any Richard Curtis film, also includes Rhys Ifans premiere (as far as I know!) and he plays a great character, wearing a diving suit because nothing was clean, brilliant, Richard sCurtis seemed to really like this character and gave him a lot of funny lines.

The standard of the acting is brilliant, the script, while not profound and not Shakespeare like is easy to understand with funny lines dotted around. The characters are believable but can be slightly imaginary as some of this stuff would never happen in real life. But we like a bit of romanticism!!

~Trivia~

The house with the blue exists, it once belonged to Richard Curtis.

During the birthday dinner scene, Anna is asked how much she was paid for her last role, her reply is $15m, and this is how much she was paid for Notting Hill.

The montage of Julia Roberts as Anna Scott at the very beginning of the film is all real shots, most of it taken from US entertainment programme 'Entertainment Tonight'

The blue door was auctioned off, soon after graffiti appeared next to it saying 'This Is The Hollywood Door'

Summary: Notting Hill, timeless Rom Com !!