love in the uk
Notting Hill opens very British, very proper, with William Thacker (Hugh Grant) introducing himself with a casual voice-over, then taking us on an establishing stroll through his neighborhood, his home, Notting Hill. During this walk we learn a) his wife has left him; b) he runs a bookstore which specializes in travel literature; and c) he’s going to be the voice of reason in this romantic comedy, the stable (non-travelling) center around which everything else spins. Which is to say it’s the kind of movie where all he has to do with stand still, be careful not to change any (see: resist temptation to), and fortune will eventually reward his immutability.
It comes knocking right after the introduction, even, in the stellar form of famous actress Anna Scott (Julia Roberts, inverting her Pretty Woman role: no longer the princess, but the knight), wearing her best Jackie O. Duds, which is to say already dodging the press, whom we know is going to be the only real thing standing between these two. Of course they hit it right off, too, Thacker’s self-conscious yet articulate vulnerability evidently opposite enough the ego-charged Hollywood-type Anna’s accustomed to that she has no real choice but to plant one on him, send him head over heels in love. Not just star-struck, either, but the real thing.
It never takes long, does it?
That accomplished, Notting Hill can get started with the serious business, all the necessary complications involved with a peasant dating royalty–all the sneaking around, false names, etc–which of course culminates in a sea of flashbulbs, Anna and Thacker splashed all over the tabloids. Her returning to the limelight, her natural element, him returning to his life which, in comparison, no longer seems quite as idyllic as it did before, but now feels paler, like a compromise. Like the difference between real life and being in the movies, yes, but Notting Hill doesn’t get quite that cerebral. It’s important not to lose the target audience with things like theme, rhythm, all that.
What really makes Notting Hill watchable, in the end, is the supporting cast, Thacker’s group of close friends who are so real as to feel almost out of place. And of course too, there’s the Spike (Rhys Ifans) we know from the trailer, there for the comedic release each time, and–as with all clown figures–the first one to see the truth about Thacker and Anne, prompting Hugh Grant into another end-of-the-movie car chase scene (just as frantic and entertaining as it was in Nine Months, too). True to the genre, too, Notting Hill shamelessly tries to jerk a few tears in the final frames, but then makes the mistake of taking it a little too long. But so be it. Maybe the idea was that if a happy ending’s happy, then more of that ending will be even happier. There does come a point where we can get no happier, though. Notting Hill dances dangerously close to that limit.