Rent it if you subscribe to the National Enquirer.

Rating: 4/10 (28 January 2001)

I kept thinking it seemed odd at the beginning of the movie that Hugh Grant should be surprised by the attentions of this famous movie starlet. After all, he is surely one of the leading heart-throbs on the screen these days. Oh yeah, I remembered, he is pretending to be a nobody, not an actor. But even as a nobody, I had trouble believing he would be shy and unable to get a date. And I had a heck of a time identifying with him.
And then there is Julia Roberts, famous actress, pretending she can't find true love, except in a book shopkeeper. Huh??? OK, accepting that stretch, lets say she was not a famous actress and just a girl who comes on to Grant. I doubt someone looking like Hugh Grant would pay much attention to such a mousy chick. So the logic that there is true love in Grant's heart for the person, not the actress is hard to accept.
If only there had been a climatic love scene - no not sex, but an intelligent conversation. I mean here are two people who decide not just to marry, but to make radical changes in their lives and they have done nothing deeper than take a walk in a park at night. I mean, she comes in to his book store to buy a book about travel; he owns a book store with nothing but books about travel. I am sitting there just waiting for a conversation about how they love to travel and would like to run away to some tropical isle together, or something. Not just a few quick name droppings of authors and painters.
The weird collection of people in Grant's family resembles the Addams Family, with Grant the only normal one. But then it began to make sense: this movie is not aimed at intellectuals, but at air heads who read People magazine and the tabloids, and whose very being hangs vicariously on reading about the lives of celebrities. The family represents the demographics of the tabloid readers, providing one of each type so they can identify with someone in the movie.
This could have been a profound movie about love transcending all, etc. Instead it is a superficial romance aimed at people whose idea of romance consists of a famous person taking one look at them and then falling madly in love with them. If you read People magazine, you will probably enjoy it. If you read Scientific American, forget it.
One other thing, this is another one of those videos where the box bears no resemblance to the movie. Why is Julia Roberts in pearls with a goofy grin? I mean she spends most of the movie in T-shirt. It makes it look like she is some rich person who lives in a mansion in Notting Hill. When the package doesn't match the contents you know something's wrong.