Predictable, witty, charming, super cast - Oh... and English!

Rating: 7/10 (7 November 1999)

I enjoyed this film from first to last. But then, I would. An English expatriate watching his city, watching all those amusing, articulate, silly ass, Brits, that give Americans such a strange notion of us. And that one stunning American, Julia Roberts, liking our city and its people, too. How could I not enjoy it. Hmmm....
Well, from the moment Anna Scott walks into the bookshop, the plot is predictable. We are given very little data to explain why the two leading characters are as they are, and not much to explain their attraction to each other. Indeed, there is not much explanation of anything; part of its English charm are the long silences, the pauses in the rhythm of the action, as in Grant's manner of speech. Perhaps with such an obvious plot, explanation or any attempt at elaboration would have been banal. Perhaps that is why the real glory of the film (after, that is, Miss Roberts' radiant smile) is the eccentric collection of supporting roles, each perfectly played, although Rhys Evans's Spike deserves to be singled out as impeccably offbeat. Miss Roberts, too, deserves appreciation for a precision in phrasing that turns the rather stock character she plays into something more interesting. Grant, though, really does need to lift himself from that English middle class bemusement that seems his only manner, whether he is in contemporary London, in Jane Austen's West Country, or Norman Lindsay's early 20th century Australia.
Certainly a well-made and enjoyable film, but the principal protagonists should go on and do more and better things, as I sense they can.