Nobody bumbles better than Hugh Grant

Rating: Null/10 (23 June 1999)

As I type, there are already 161 reviews of this film at the IMDb, with pronouncements running the gamut from "derivative drivel" to "restored my faith in life." Can any more be said? Well, I liked this film enough to try, so here goes. But first, my prejudices, so you can measure your grain of salt: (1) I like Hugh Grant. A lot. As in, I am enough of a fan to have felt "let down" by the, er, scandalous event of a few years back that (only temporarily, one hopes) put the kabosh on his career's momentum. (2) I tend to like British movies and/or movies about Britain. (3) I can take or leave Julia Roberts.
All right, then. What about this movie? Well, it won't make your Top Ten list if you're someone for whom any good film must be stunningly original, grittily realistic, profoundly insightful, cruelly funny, and untainted by Hollywood. But if you like **very** clever, gentle romantic comedy and don't mind suspending a little disbelief--if, say, you liked "Shakespeare in Love"--then this one's for you.
In a nutshell: You might have seen "Notting Hill"'s premise described as a "kinder, gentler" version of that of "Four Weddings and a Funeral," but its real prototype is "Cinderella." That is, a contrived set of circumstances give awkward nobody William Thacker (Grant) his night at the ball with glamorous movie star Anna Scott (Roberts), and the rest of the story is about whether or not there'll be a Happily Ever After. As was Grant's character in "Four Weddings," Thacker is supported by a quirky (if less demanding) group of friends, but I think the film's funniest moments occur when he's apart from this cozy circle, a fish out of water in the world of the woman he longs for. For example, one hilarious extended sequence has the bashful bookseller, who has showed up at Ms. Scott's hotel suite hoping for a moment alone with her, forced to blend in among a throng of reporters interviewing the star about her latest picture (and in a candidate for the movie's Best Line, one pseud is overheard praising the Scott film-within-the-film as "Jean de Florette meets Close Encounters"). Much later, Thacker helps his lady run lines for one of her upcoming projects, and, though he can't help mentioning Henry James, he sweetly manages to avoid laughing at the script's banality. And so on.
Since we're never allowed inside the head of Roberts' Anna Scott, the movie is really Grant's to carry, and he does it brilliantly. Alas, though, this role won't help the actor shake his quite undeserved reputation for always playing the same character: Thacker is a variation on Grant's trademark "charming bumbler." But in this film he surely proves (for those who still had doubts) that nobody bumbles better. And Roberts, for her part, provides the perfect romantic foil with her dazzling, high-strung-but-superficially-breezy Anna Scott. There's a real chemistry between the two leads. Grant also plays well off Rhys Ifans, a Welsh actor who jump-starts his career here with a turn as Thacker's strangely endearing flatmate from Hell. And, oh, yes--Alec Baldwin appears briefly as Roberts' horrible Hollywood boyfriend, a one-man answer to the question "Why would a girl like her turn to a regular guy like Grant's character?"
More interesting to me than the moot question of whether two "real people" from such different worlds could ever meet and connect, though, is the question of whether the audience-pleasing "Notting Hill" is ultimately an example of the very sort of slick cinematic product it mocks. For, though it satirizes, it also panders, concluding with a Hollywood-style happy ending which is strangely un-integral to the film as a whole. Are writer and director being cleverly post-modern, or just ironically clueless? To be honest, I don't think it matters. Even without the bittersweet ending that I think would've been more appropriate, this movie delivers many, many pleasures.