Blitzsieg

Rating: 10/10 (13 August 1999)

One of the songs I hated most in the seventies was "She" by Charles Aznavour. And now hearing this at the beginning of Notting Hill with the image of Anna Scott/Julia Roberts makes me nearly faint. It is incredible beautiful. It sets the mood. I knew after 20 seconds that I would love the movie. That is something that only happened once before with "Trading places" and there the music was by Mozart. Why did it happen again with Aznavour? I don«t know. It is magic.
If there is something wrong with the film it is that it is too perfect. There is not one bad scene in it. Never too slow never too fast. At first viewing I thought that the young ladies William«s friend introduce to him were a little off. But at second time I found that even these scenes worked. So it is a little bit synthetic. They tried to take everything from Four Weddings without really repeating themselves. All clichs are avoided. And that is something you feel and it made me just a little bit uncomfortable. But if it is done as brilliantly as that I do not mind at all.
Although I do not like Julia Roberts that much Notting Hill was in a way even better than Four Weddings. And not because of Spike but because the character Hugh plays is better developed. Playing a young man who is shy (and polite) and at the same time witty he is totally believable. This is something only Hugh Grant can do. Along with Cary he is the only actor who really gets away with the fact that he is handsome (from a male point of view). Robert Redford for example or Clint Eastwood just seem to be too much in love with themselves to be endured. If I were a woman I would probably fall in love with someone like Jimmy Stuart but if the man had to be handsome only the Grants would be eligible. Others like Paul Newman or Gregory Peck look great without being annoying but they are too much like gods. You would not really want to be with them.
One thing Notting Hill has adopted from Four Weddings is that the female character is not as pure, "good" as the male and that one can still understand why our hero loves her. And when Julia makes her "I am just a girl" speech I had tears in my eye. Rule of thumb: Any film that makes me cry gets a 10.
I had the good luck to watch the film in the original at first time. Normally a film does not loose much being dubbed. (Woody Allen is supposed to have said that the German voice fits his character better than his own and I certainly agree, same would be true for Robert deNero for example.) But Hugh«s timing is so exact that in this case the original is twice as good. But even the German version would get a 10 easily.