It was an uphill battle to like Notting Hill, but by the time it was over I’d more or less managed. Julia Roberts plays Anna Scott, one of the most beautiful and talented actresses alive. Hugh Grant plays William Thacker, the owner of a small, unsuccessful travel bookstore in Notting Hill, England. And of all the bookstores, in all the cities, in all the world she walks into his. Their attraction to one another is instant and strong, but is it strong enough to overcome the differences between her world of glamour and glitz and his world of fish and chips?
Notting Hill was a hard movie to warm up to. The characters, such as Thacker’s roommate Spike, are meant to be quirky and colorful, but they tend to just come off as strange or, in Spike’s case, slightly repulsive. Nor does the romantic angle between Scott and Thacker ever really seem to work since there is no chemistry between the two characters and, other then love at first sight, there’s never any real reason given for the attraction between the two. In fact, just the opposite since Anna Scott is such a witch with a capital B that it’s hard to understand why Thacker is so taken with her. Hugh Grant does a good job in his role as The Average Man taken with The Beautiful Star, but Julia Roberts, despite her talent, seemed to be pretty much sleepwalking through her role as The Beautiful Star.
Still, Notting Hill wasn’t a total waste. While I never could accept or understand the attraction between Scott and Thacker, the secondary characters, even Spike, had come to grow on me by the end of the film. So much so that by Notting Hill;s climax, a chase scene that involved all of the secondary characters, I found myself admiring and rooting for them. Also, while there was no chemistry between Scott and Thacker the chemistry between Thacker’s best friend, who’d recently become a paraplegic in an accident, and her husband was palpable. Every scene they were in sparkled and the film would have been better if more time had been spent with them. Another nice touch involved a scene designed to show the passage of nearly a year between Scott and Thacker seeing each other. As Thacker walks from one end of Notting Hill to another the seasons change around him going from winter to fall to spring and back to summer before he finishes his walk. It was very well done.
If you’re looking for a chick flick you could do worse then Notting Hill. You could do better as well, I’ll Grant you, but you could do worse.
Grade: C
