Dull and unfunny

Rating: Null/10 (6 September 2006)

First (or second) impression is that Notting Hill doesn't bear more than one viewing. I originally gave this light comedy 3.5/5, but on seeing it a second time could only give it a 2.5  and I think even that might be a little generous. There's too much about this film now that irritates: the slow pace at which the story unfolds, Hugh Grant's trademark hesitant quirkiness, Julia Roberts' cloying "I'm just a girl" line, etc. And behind it all is the unshakable suspicion that Richard Curtis is running on autopilot, simply rehashing the same themes that worked so well for him with Four Weddings but which come across as so contrived here as to be nearly cynical. For example, choosing to have one character confined to a wheelchair seems either unashamedly manipulative or simply included to add a little something to the "biggest loser" speech in the dinner party scene  which doesn't really work anyway.
Grant is almost a parody of the old image he has since gone to some lengths to shed: a dithering, stuttering, self-conscious throwback to the Ian Carmichael school of acting. Perhaps attempting to broaden the film's appeal beyond that of the middle-class, Curtis attempts an injection of crude humour in the form of Thacker's witless lodger, Spike. Spike is a working-class lout with dirty feet and a poor taste in tee-shirts, and so is exactly the type that someone like Thacker would run a mile from. But then, this is a film which seems to specialise in unlikely relationships: perhaps, being a heterosexual male, I'm not really in a position to venture an opinion but, to me, it's impossible to see what a Hollywood mega-star like Scott would see in a knob like Thacker. But then I suppose that's the idea  Curtis is simply exploiting that juvenile fantasy that lives, to some degree, within all of us. Perhaps that is why so many people buy into what is essentially a half-baked comedy with improbable situations, characters who have little history beyond the boundaries of the story, and very few laughs.