A sublime carnival

Rating: 9/10 (14 October 2000)

Richard Curtis penned one of the most successful British comedies ever to grace the silver screen, and in 1999, that really nice bloke who brought the world Black Adder, The Vicar of Dibley and probably saved millions through Comic Relief went and did it again.
Against all odds, Curtis reworked the Four Weddings formula, re-teamed with producer Duncan Kenworthy and star Hugh Grant to deliver one of the most likeable comedies since, well, Four Weddings.
Many of the press picked up on the Curtis formula for making hit movies and you can see their point - to a degree. Admittedly, as with Four Weddings, there is Hugh Grant (playing bookshop owner William Thacker), likeable, unsure of himself, stumbling through life without a steady partner, blessed by a close circle of friends who are all very loveable; yes there is a character with a disability, this time around it's Gina McKee in a wheelchair.
Emma Chambers - a very good, intelligent actress if you're ever lucky enough to spend half an hour in her company - plays Thacker's colurful sister; a role which in a previous incarnation would have been played by Charlotte Coleman (Scarlett from that Weddings movie). Thacker has a scummy Welsh flatmate in the form of Spike (Rhys Ifans from Twin Towns) who wears really dirty pants and even dirtier T shirts - but has a heart of gold, which comes as no surprise to anyone.
So, into this happy throng comes the most famous actress on the planet - Anna (Julia Roberts). In probably her best role to date, Roberts gets a rare chance to prove that yes, she really is quite good at this thesping lark. Never for a minute do you think that, no - wait a minute - she could never be the most successful actress in the world. It's for this reason that a dinner party in honour of Thacker and his sister reveals Roberts to be really rather more than the sum of her extraordinary lips and eyes that make most normal blokes feel like they've just lost a couple of weeks in a darkened theatre - when in fact it's been about 10 seconds.
Budding screenwriters should take note of Curtis' script. Six years ago he wrote an article in The Observer which was a definitive guide for any poor hack trying to make his screenplay real and come alive both on the page and on screen. It was reprinted in the really rather good Four Weddings script book (available for about a quid from all good discount book shops).
Now Curtis is quite lucky to have, as his wife, Emma Freud (also a very nice sort if you're lucky enough to chat to her for a bit). Her name pops up as script editor and you get the feeling it should have been in the main credits for if a gag works in Notting Hill, it's probably because Freud sat there till the early hours telling Curtis why he should plump for that one and not the inferior one which ended up in one of his waste paper baskets.
There are some occasionally moving scenes too. Tim McInnery helping his disabled wife into the car for that inevitable, race against time finale is something rarely seen - nor played with such throwaway conviction.
Good support comes from James Dreyfus from Gimme, Gimme Gimme and The Thin Blue Line; Henry Goodman (from not bad Beeb sitcom Unfinished Business and the London stage production of Chicago), while John Shrapnel (101 Dalmatians; Gladiator) is superb as Roberts' press officer.
The soundtrack is a little dubious but Elvis Costello's version of the old Charles Aznavour hit, She, works well and the score keeps things ticking over.
One of the best films of 1999 which ensures you could do far worse than spend a couple of hours at this Notting Hill carnival.