The Princess And The Toad

Rating: Null/10 (6 June 1999)

Hugh Grant as Cinderella? Notting Hill stretches the believable as much as any mainstream comedy romance.
"The most famous movie star in the world" Anna Scott (Julia Roberts) throws herself at a love lorn bookseller (Hugh Grant) and whisks him away into her life. Then, no doubt, they live happily ever after in her movie star castle.
Notting Hill was written and directed by the same team, Richard Curtis and Roger Michell,who created the very successful (and much more satisfying) Four Weddings And A Funeral. They have been reasonably successful at establishing the same light hearted fizz and pathos as Four Weddings, it's just that it's hard to accept that Anna Scott, would first, bother with a fellow like this book seller and secondly, that we should feel sorry for film stars.
Don't you just love those quotes we sometimes hear about how "cold we were for a day while we filmed in the snow" or "how awful it was having to lie in bed for a sex scene for three hours." On a million dollars a week!
The cult of the movie star is emphasised in Notting Hill by having Hugh Grant's family as droll and eccentric as possible. We haven't quite got the gay bachelors of Weddings but there definitely is the roughish, multicolour haired, shrieking girl. And then there's the old girlfriend in the wheelchair. And they're all strugglers and English. Anna Scott is rich and American.
But Notting Hill is pleasant enough if you don't mind cliches and most people don't. Roberts is in familiar territory and her strongest asset, her air of vulnerability is allowed full reign. There are enough laughs, or at least smiles, in the film to make it a reasonable buy for an audience.
Hugh Grant is his earnest, blinking self and is allowed more credibility than Roberts. After all it would be far more likely for the toad to accept the kiss, than for the Princess to give it.