** (out of ****)
Starring Julia Roberts, Hugh Grant, Hugh Bonneville, Tim McInnery, Gina McKee, and Rhys Ifans
Directed by Roger Michell & written by Richard Curtis
1999
124 min PG13
On the set of “The Shining,” Kubrick is said to have told Jack Nicholson: “It’s real, but it’s not interesting.”
I can completely believe that there are world-famous actresses like Anna Scott (played by Julia Roberts) who are utter, vapid blanks and fall in love with equally uninteresting London bookstore owners like William Thacker (Hugh Grant, playing a character only a few letters away from William Thackeray, author of “Barry Lyndon” and “Vanity Fair”). I suppose it’s possible that she could wander into his bookstore and then kiss him a few minutes later for no real reason. And I also find it completely plausible that the two of them might go on to have a romance comprised primarily of clipped monosyllables and awkward pauses.
Such is the premise and execution of “Notting Hill,” and I just didn’t care. Neither person was interesting enough to watch on his or her own, nor were they interesting to watch together. I had no stake in whether they would fall in love or fall apart. Instead, I found myself looking at the run-time display on the DVD player and thinking to myself, there’s still another hour. In my head I started writing this review.
Maybe if I were part of the Julia Roberts Love-Fest “Notting Hill” would have effected me differently. Then maybe I, like Hugh Grant in the movie, would have equated five minutes with her to an audience with the pope. Alas, I’m part of that growing Internet cabal that responds to Ms. Roberts with bland indifference (see “Ruthless Reviews’” review of “Erin Brockovich,” explicit language not suitable for anyone, and the Flick Filosopher’s take). Okay, actually both of those sites respond to her with loathing, but you get the idea. I don’t get the whole “girl next door” thing, probably because I’ve never lived next door to any girls. I think I’ve seen two movies with her that I liked: “Ocean’s Eleven,” although I don’t think she was worthy of George Clooney’s manly sacrifice, and “The Player,” where she has a two-second walk-on at the end.
But what perplexes me is how much talent could not save this film. Usually I adore Hugh Grant. Even when he’s just playing the same guy over and over, I can’t help it, and I know that makes me unforgiveable in the eyes of many. His finest hour was as the patron saint of insouciance in “About a Boy” and he was priceless as the predatory buffoon in “Bridget Jones’s Diary.” I even liked him in “Two Weeks Notice,” which was what it was: two amusing caricatures bickering for ninety minutes. But in “Notting Hill” he’s just a collection of mannerisms—stuttering, blinking, apologetic—left over from his other movies.
“Notting Hill” is directed by Roger Michell of “Changing Lanes,” a fine film, but more perplexing is that it is written by Richard Curtis of “Love Actually,” “Bridget Jones’s Diary,” “Black Adder,” and “Mr. Bean.” Here Curtis seems to be off; he gets in a few good zingers, mostly delivered by Hugh. But he is unable to do with Hugh and Julia in two hours what he was able to do with numerous characters in five minutes of “Love Actually:” make them interesting.
There are several supporting characters in “Notting Hill” who deserve to have movies made about them, including a married couple (Gina McKee of “Croupier” and Tim McInnery of “Black Adder”) that involves a wheelchair and bad cooking. McKee is an acquired taste and once you’ve acquired her, you start to notice that she’s much better looking than Julia Roberts; she’s the one in the wheelchair but her condition is not used sentimentally or manipulatively. And then there’s the revelation about halfway into the movie that Hugh used to be in love with another woman, not Julia, and I thought to myself “I’d much rather see a movie about that.”
Comic relief is provided by Hugh’s flatmate (Rhys Ifan), but he’s such obvious Comic Relief—such a collection of eccentricities bundled around no real core—that he’s only intermittently funny. At one point we find out that he’s supposed to be an “artist,” and I was surprised that he had an existence outside of bumbling in on Hugh and Julia at awkward moments.
So that’s it. I was bored. Oh yes, and there was the Grand Romantic Gesture at the end, that I saw coming from a while away, and it made me groan, and because Julia and Hugh have nothing to talk about we are given too many montages of them together set to sugary pop ballads. The movie’s end result is like a piece of gossip you hear about strangers. To wit, a friend says: “I once knew a guy who dated a celebrity.” You say: “How did it go?” And in the instant before your friend answers, you have absolutely no preference as to what he will say. You don’t care either way because you don’t know these people. That’s exactly how I felt after two hours of “Notting Hill.”
Finished July 30, 2004
Copyright © 2004 Friday & Saturday Night
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