Underneath this saccharine romantic-comedy-by-the-numbers lies an intriguing reflection of our celebrity culture.

Rating: 6/10 (2 November 2018)

On the surface Notting Hill may present itself as fast food for the broken heart: a harmless piece of feel-good cinema fluff that might double down a night with the Ben & Jerry's in pajama bottoms. However there's much more to this nineties formulaic screwball comedy than meets the eye.
The far-fetched plot of Notting Hill draws its inspiration from previous fantasy driven screwball comedies such as Frank Capra's It Happened One Night (1934) and Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936). These pioneering films in screwball comedy capitalized on the glamorized fantasy of the average Joe (or average Jane) living the unthinkable: an actual romantic, meaningful relationship with a bona fide world-famous celebrity.
Capra's timeless classics however, were developed in the shadow of the Great Depression, addressing the social issues of inequality amidst the fairytale-like courtship of its protagonists. This was a crucial element to those films; it gave context and grounding for a romance that would otherwise feel completely unreal to the audience. Notting Hill seems to allude to this fictionalized awareness, with both Grant and Roberts repeating the line "it was surreal, but nice." This line in particular felt like a wink to us in the audience, since the filmmakers of Notting Hill are unable to make their picture entirely believable. It's as if they are telling us that we should just go along for the ride.
Capra's films on the other hand, fully immerse us in their world because the celebrity and "everyman" meeting scenarios are not entirely serendipitous. Quite the opposite, in fact, they meet through carefully developed character motivations and fully established locations. Notting Hill has us take an almost religious leap of faith into believing that one of the worlds largest superstars casually buys books without a chaperone or bodyguard in a working-class district of London. When Hugh Grant spills juice on her shirt it requires a second major leap of faith to believe that she would enter a strangers apartment, again without any sort of bodyguard or chaperone, to clean up. To that effect, Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston present a far more believable couple in the action romantic drama The Bodyguard (1992).
However, I have no problem turning off my inner critic and push myself to enter the world of the film which isn't drawing me in on its own. I enjoy many cheesy romantic comedies and have no problem defending less believable plot lines like 2001's Serendipity with John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale. Notting Hill however, has far worse writing and a weaker supporting cast. Its comic timing is always a bit off, and even has Hugh Grant saying outlandish lines like "Ill stabbed him to death later", meant as a joke early in the film when his roommate doesn't pass along a message left by Julia Roberts (Anna Scott).
The supporting cast in this film fulfill the role of a cliché group of British pub crawlers and middle-class domesticity. The one twist in this, which could have been a very interesting character, was a paraplegic woman named Bella played by Gina McKee. However, instead of fleshing out her dialogue she is left as the inspiration p**n for Grant and Roberts' hardships. What's worse, the director actually has her leveraging her disability in order to grant Grant (no pun interned) access to a press conference with Roberts. It seems that Gina McKee's character exists in the film only for this, which is a tragedy of filmmaking in and of itself.
The worst aspects of Notting Hill lay in it's character development and completely unhealthy relationship dynamics. Julia Roberts plays an almost pathological narcissist: someone who lies and cheats on Hugh Grant and is completely incapable of any heartfelt apology. It's interesting to note that she never says once in the film that she loves Grant's character, William Thacker. Instead, after breaking his heart twice and lying to him, she asks for him to love her (after a little time has passed, of course).
The film sells the relationship on the chemistry of Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts and the celebrity fanaticism that it expects from its viewers. In fact, almost every character is enamored with movie stars (even if they don't know which film Anna Scott is in) and plays the everyman role as some sort of stupefied stooge drunk at the alter of celebrity worship. I couldn't help but feel somewhat offended, as if the filmmakers see the public as dribbling idiots who want nothing more than autographs. Even Grant's character, who perpetually "plays it cool" is shown in movie theaters gazing upon Roberts in a bizarre peeping-tom like obsession. Six months after she cheats on him he is still lost in his daydream of Roberts, replaying her films. Some of the scenes are a little reminiscent of Stockholm syndrome in the way that Hugh Grant is portrayed as the non-functioning sad sop who can't get over this femme fatal.
Perhaps to combat this state of events, the producers of the film have laced every montage and establishing shot with the most unbelievably saccharine soundtrack I've heard in years. Once again, it's as if the filmmakers don't have confidence in the script they've made to draw us into a world of actual romanticism. They need to create that romanticism artificially with a score of Al Greene and other musicians that created songs which far surpass the material they are being used for.
The most painful part of the "Notting Hill experience" has to be the way Hugh Grant's character is written. Obviously aimed at an unintelligent and emotionally stunted audience of People magazine readers, William Thatcher is portrayed as the ultimate non-believable hunk: He's handsome, charming, unassuming, self-effacing, and yet always has the first two buttons of his shirt open and just enough confidence to say the right thing. In addition to this, he's inexplicably lonely and unattractive to the outside world, despite his undeniable good looks and charm. As a character he has no depth, his past marriage is explained away in one sentence we can see no reason for him to be the suffering hunk that he is, aside from the necessary role that he plays in his "accidental" meeting with Anna Scott (Julia Roberts). The script reminds us that he was put on this earth to please her narcissism and "treat her right" while she is there to reap the rewards of an undiscovered handsome ball of charm.
Ultimately this film was a commercial slam dunk and for somewhat obvious reasons. It gave a somewhat interesting peek into the life celebrities and lets us bask in the glow of our adoration for Julia Roberts, not unlike Busby Berkeley did for Ruby Keeler in his 1930's musicals. Julia Roberts was at the zenith of her career in the 1990's. She has always been a magnificent actor and a terrific beauty, so I was not spared from the spell myself. However, I cannot be sold entirely on a film based on respect and attraction to a single celebrity. The characters need more substance and definition, as well as motivations that extend beyond the codependent and unhealthy dynamic presented to us.
While the film has an admirable switch in gender roles, it takes this too far in certain respects as well, with Julia Roberts trying to buy off Grant's character with an expensive painting. It hits all the right notes for the lonely middle America working woman. It has moments of defiance, gender reversal, and a completely submissive and buttery hunk, mastering in the art of spinelessness. The film ends with an ultimate montage of wish fulfillment, overlaid with sappy music to show the good life of marriage, pregnancy, and happily ever after. A final reminder that the script itself is void of any real identity.
I can't recommend this movie as a good piece of screwball comedy fluff. However, it is a pretty fascinating look at our culture's fanaticism over celebrities, the way the movie industry views us within that fanaticism, and our skewed complexes for dating fantasies. it seems that we can find any romantic comedy decent enough when codependence and narcissism are normalized by attractive actors and a half-baked script. A forgettable, yet not wholly purposeless movie.