Can a diffident and shy travel bookstore owner find happiness with the reigning female movie star?

Rating: 10/10 (13 December 2007)

With few exceptions that the public recall, both Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant have been singularly blessed in their film choices. My own recollection for Roberts was some unfair carping about her nice follow-up (with Richard Gere) to PRETTY WOMEN, RUNAWAY BRIDE. Basically a different storyline, the fans of the former film were confused by the nuttiness of the latter one. For Grant there has never been a negative comment about his films that I recall, but rather that embarrassing prostitute incident a few years back that really just showed that the actor was human. Both have a nice film charisma that makes their myriads of fans very happy. In NOTTING HILL the charisma of both mixed well on screen. It is a very sweet comedy.
Anna Scott (Julia Roberts) is basically a clone of Roberts - she is a multi-talented and beautiful film star who is known around the globe. One day she is doing a "Haroun - Al - Raschid" act (like the Caliph in the stories of THE ARABIAN NIGHTS who goes in disguise among his subjects). She is doing some simple sightseeing and shopping in London's Notting Hill Section. She enters a bookstore specializing in travel books. It is owned by William Thacker (Hugh Grant), who lives in the neighborhood. Thacker's business is struggling along, with too many people coming in expecting it sells best-sellers (John Grisham) or classics (Dickens). He keeps correcting them about this.*
(And the script writer makes a mistake - a minor one. Dickens, unlike what Thacker tells a stupid customer, did write several travel books: THE UNCOMMERCIAL TRAVELLER and PICTURES FROM ITALY are two of them.)
Due to an accidental collision between the two in the street, Thacker invites Scott into his home to clean herself. He behaves with typical charm and care not to offend her. She leaves, but a moment later rings the bell again, and when inside kisses him. Later she leaves a message (that is nearly lost due to Thacker's idiot roommate (Spike - Rhys Infans)) to visit her at the Ritz Hotel in London. Thacker does see Scott, but has to pretend he is a movie reviewer for the magazine HORSE AND HOUND. He ends up asking questions to her and her co-stars about their latest film (which he knows nothing about), and how it relates to horses and hounds (it is a space epic, so it doesn't). But Scott and he go out together that night to a dinner party at Thacker's family's home.
The film progresses like this, as we see the attraction between the two develop. Both are basically simple types, and the glitz of Scott's film reputation belies her feet on the ground approach to life - except for her fear about scandal. Like all celebrities she tries to avoid that shade of limelight that Holly Golightly says really ruins many girls complexions. This makes things difficult for Thacker's dating of Scott, as she frequently is aware of cynical comments made about her (watch the scene in the restaurant for this), and she has to also put up with hyped publicity stories such as her long standing relationship with a prominent film actor (Alec Baldwin in a nice single scene). Finally, she flees to Thacker after a couple of months, when she is facing an embarrassment over some nude photos and an old (secret) nude film that was shot of her. Thacker gives her what seems to be quiet and protection in his home, only to find that the press is tipped off. Scott is aware that while Thacker will be able to shrug this off in a short time, she will have the scandal of their relationship follow her for her life. She leaves him in anger.
Will that be the end of the line for the lovers? I'll let the viewer see the film. Savor the performances of the leads who do fit well together, but also of Infans, who is the guileless dimwit who never realizes the long range results of his blunders. Yet in the end he proves to have more sense than Grant does in what to do about the relationship with Roberts.
NOTTING HILL is a real charmer for the movie fan, and a rarity in the present age of angst and bloodshed in our films. I recommend it heartily.