Er, This Is So, Um, So Awkward Really That, Well -- It's Surreal.

Rating: 6/10 (13 November 2017)

You have never seen such realistic portrayals of awkwardness, nor so many of them. Hugh Grant runs a humble bookshop in the little urban village of Notting Hill and one day a glamorous movie star, Julia Roberts, enters the store and pokes around. He doesn't recognize her but he kind of, well, likes her. On his way home to his humble flat and his skinny and nearly insane flat mate he bumps into her again, spilling something all over her shirt. With abundant apologies he invites her in so that she can clean up. She does so. And as she leaves his flat she unexpectedly leans forward and gives him a great big smooch, leaving poor Hugh Grant dumbfounded.
He later makes a date with her but shows up while her interviews with reporters is still going on. He must pose as a writer from Horse and Hounds magazine and ask her silly questions like did she use horses in her last movie. ("It took place in outer space.") But mistaken identities are a staple of successful romantic comedies and of comedies in general. They were probably staples when Aristophanes used them. And that's what this is, a traditional romantic comedy, with three ups and two downs.
What makes this different is the understatement and unease in the budding relationship. Nobody is better at discomfiture than Hugh Grant. Hugh is as good as Cary, better maybe. Some of the other staples I could have done without -- Hugh's eccentric but warm family, a near-slapstick ending, the soggy music. (A melancholy rendition of "Love Makes the World Go Round" when Hugh seems to have lost Roberts and is moping around.) It's a colorful comedy though and I enjoyed it. There are just enough touches of realistic diffidence to tickle the heart of anyone who was once swamped with the neuropeptides of true love and then lost it.