Cute but Empty

Rating: 6/10 (26 January 2008)

Julia Roberts playing a famous American movie star wasn't quite a stretch and yet it felt unconvincing. The humor works the second you're seeing it but then it vanishes into thin air. It feels self conscious and forced. Once all that is said, "Notting Hill" emerges as a pleasant enough improbable romantic comedy in the "Four Weddings And A Funeral" mold without ever reaching the smart, disarming charm of its model. Hugh Grant is lovely in a part destined to seem Hugh Grantish with all the clipped bit of nonsense that have made Grant a household name. The quirky friends and bizarre room mates are the questionable salt and pepper of this romantic tale. I found myself smiling, getting impatient and enjoying it, all at the same time. I'm too much of a Preston Sturgess fan to be able to sit through a modern comedy in the way I did with "The Lady Eve" for instance. My favorite moment: The Horse and Hound sequence. Very funny. If you've never seen a Preston Sturgess, Ernst Lubitch or Billy Wilder comedy, you may like "Notting Hill" much more than I did.