Romance & Portobello (without the mushrooms)

Rating: 9/10 (16 March 2000)

Though from my title, they could have been featured, Julia Roberts & Hugh Grant team for a fun summer romance as the British and Americans do it, when they meet in London ... and want each other .. from star-off aloof & curiosity to seduction & entanglement .. this film follows its expected form .. pairing Roberts as an American actress doing a London area movie .. who walks in to the TRAVEL book shop of Hugh Grant in Notting Hill in London's Portobelllo Road ... Yes the place with the "flea market" beyond Paddington Station in the West End. Having been away from London for over a decade, I'd forgotten the scenery west of the Park; and the Manhattan - Washington DC - La mix of London;'s peoples... (Though the film could have had more races ... as reality ... it captured the mixed flavor like Chelsea of London's gentry and middle class immigrants.
Grant and Roberts are well matched ... he very reserved and "square" British yet joining with the eclectic of his "group house living?" and its neighborhood "Notting Hill". She is well almost like the Julia Roberts fan club .. trying to be a "private living person as a celebrity...". Literate, with the Anglo-American charm of Charing Cross Road .... but like a move from Manhattan to Brooklyn or the Bronx ... She sips and sits ... likes and becomes involved with a non-actor on an actresses's holiday with a private person .. privacy attempted .. and the flow of romance. [Even a scene with Alec Balwin cameoing as her established surprise visit Hollywood beau]
For a two hour film this is like a good dinner without formality and many courses. Good characters, good acting ... and, MS Roberts? .. Anything auto-biographical in the screenplay? (Yes the nudity of the screen is a brief scene and there is a "tongue and cheek" Roberts nude scene (you'll see a thigh & a rib) .. But a good film about the movies treat its own with care and well ... and in this one ..well I'd place Heidi Lamarr and James Mason as a good combination to compare these.
Enjoy the scene ... and fall in love. Romance ****/5 and film ****/5