Screenplay is excellent, though Americanisms jar

Rating: Null/10 (5 May 1999)

The first review on this page put me off seeing Notting Hill, but also made me flick through the published screenplay for the reportedly distracting Americanisms. I still can't comment on the film per se, but I ended up laughing in a bookshop over the first fifty pages of the script. If an assistant hadn't begun staring I'd have finished it there and lost Richard Curtis a sale.
I do agree that there are jarring Americanisms - I'm not concerned about that generally but while most seemed picked to work for both US and UK audiences, a couple were really obscure. That aside, it's a warmly smart and at times extremely funny script.
There are parallels to Four Weddings and a Funeral but they're style rather than content: if you've seen Four Weddings you will hear Hugh Grant's voice as you read his dialogue, for instance.
I'd like to see Richard Curtis trying something other than romantic comedy on the big screen (he's already done much on television) but refreshingly so would he: right at the end of the published screenplay he mentions that he hopes this is the last one he writes.
PS. I paid up and bought the book.