As I pointed out with Four Weddings, a number of Richard Curtis’ ideas come from romance fantasies. And there’s perhaps none more pervasive than falling in love with a celebrity. Everyone, and especially movie fans, has had a crush on a famous actor and likely has dreamed about romancing them. Notting Hill is Curtis’ realization of that dream, and his exploration of what a relationship would be like between a regular chap working in a London bookstore and one of the most famous actresses in the world.
Julia Roberts doesn’t play herself of course (Curtis is a much smarter writer than the scribe of Ocean’s 12), but Anna Scott is certainly a star of a similar stature, likely written specifically for Roberts and her on and off-screen persona. And perhaps it’s because of that star power that she’s gifted with a relatively fleshed out personality. Notting Hill, as with Four Weddings, is firmly rooted in the point of view of Hugh Grant, this time a less awkward but lonely and miserable travel bookseller. However Anna is a much richer partner (both in wealth and identity) than Andie McDowell’s Carrie. We know her about as well as Grant’s William Thacker by the end of the story, and theirs is a much more solid and interesting relationship because of it.
Obviously, Curtis was interested in celebrity and the lifestyle of celebrity, but in touching on that he had no other choice but to weigh in on Anna’s relationship to her own fame. Very deftly Curtis, Roberts, and director Roger Michell ground her, allow her to be cynical and insecure about her career and success (she says winning an Oscar doesn’t matter –four years after Curtis lost one). One of the movies’ best scenes is when she’s dining with Williams’ friends, who in a very English fashion are engaged in a kind of contest of self-deprecation, and she reveals her anxiety that she’s not a good actress and that her work is only fleeting –marvellously setting the stage for her continuously developing humility and relatability over the course of the film. It’s not perfect by any means. We never find out where she came from, what exactly her career trajectory has been, and we never see her story separate from Williams’ –she never strays too far from being an idea personified, but she is remarkably humanized for being at the centre of a story that could have been nothing more than the broad wish fulfilment of its central conceit. And it is Roberts (who has seemingly always been an unfairly maligned actress) as much as Curtis who makes the movie better for this.
By degree it’s Grant who proves the less engaging of the couple despite his everyman accessibility. He’s just a little more bland and a little less funny than in his previous collaboration with Curtis; that though his charm persists, he is overshadowed by Roberts’ character while his own has little unique agency. He’s also quite a bit dumber than his character in Four Weddings, failing to empathize with the realities of Anna’s lifestyle, the turbulence and frequent media attention that are a very real nightmare for her which he couldn’t possibly understand; and also gullibly interpreting her casual talk with an obnoxious co-star about him to be her genuine thoughts. However, his loneliness is keenly felt, albeit in an upper middle-class bachelorhood kind of way that though unmistakably privileged, is still very resonant. That and the palpable distance between his world and Anna’s is what makes you root for him in spite of his faults. Curtis, Michell, and Grant are great at hinting at the quiet emotional tumult that comes from having such strong feelings for a dream that was briefly reality. When William and Anna are together they’re close, but when she’s gone, they couldn’t be further apart.
This effect is made particularly stark by some of Michell’s intelligent framing choices. A stack of newspapers or magazines bearing Anna’s face while William just walks by, or in the movie theatre where he goes to see her latest film, she’s staring back at him through the screen from space (a film that incidentally seems to predict Gravity by fourteen years). I really wish that the movie had also included the scene from the poster, just for the juxtaposition of this big American actress’ face ornamenting a London tube station that her lover uses –though I suppose it achieved a similar effect by putting her on the back of the bus. And my favourite encapsulation of Williams’ loneliness is the tracking shot of him walking through Notting Hill across the seasons, always alone, which Michell and cinematographer Michael Coulter execute tremendously. There’s very much an undercutting class commentary that is illustrated well through such choices. It’s not quite an extreme kind of Cinderella story in reverse, largely due to Curtis, like most people who’ve attained a modest degree of popular success, being not quite as middle class as he thinks he (and by extent, his analogue) is. William is after all a business owner, even if he does share a house with an obscene and much poorer Welshman. But it still captures the contrast of rich and poor, fame and obscurity.
With regards to fame, Curtis is very smart in how he portrays it. Obviously the movie provided the opportunity to make fun of celebrity culture, which Curtis is happy to do, poking fun at contract specifications, celebrity dietary trends, and press junkets –in probably the funniest sequence in the movie where William accidentally impersonates a film journalist. But he also derides aspects of celebrity culture while not completely dunking on Hollywood. He stresses how Anna’s life is not an easy one, viciously characterizes tabloids (particularly the U.K.’s brand of exceptionally trashy ones), and the utter lack of privacy for big movie stars. When William opens the door onto an onslaught of paparazzi, it’s partly a joke, but tinged with deadly seriousness. Notting Hill came out only in 1999, and the tragedy of Princess Diana’s death was still fresh on the minds of British viewers –they knew how harmful paparazzi could be, which makes Williams’ obtuseness about it even more annoying. Curtis and Roberts keep us aware that Anna has to always be on her guard, even in just a relatively small confrontation at a restaurant. And that nude photos scandal that she comes to William to escape is still relevant twenty years later. That it seems cliché isn’t the fault of the movie.
Propping up these commentaries and acting as a comforting relief is Williams’ social circle, just as quaint and enjoyable as the one from Four Weddings, but with the advantage of being a more casual collection of friends. They too feel like a group that would make an amiable sitcom cast, from a good humoured and surprisingly sincere Tim McInnerny and his disabled wife Gina McKee (who William had once been in love with in a fascinatingly conspicuous minor plot beat), to Williams’ eccentric sister played by the late, lovely Emma Chambers and the then relatively unknown Hugh Bonneville as a bluff, lonely businessman. Also, in arguably his big break, Rhys Ifans as Williams’ casually chauvinistic flatmate whose Welshness is his biggest joke, and James Dreyfus as his single co-worker. This gang has really good chemistry, and with almost half of them coming from Curtis’ T.V. comedy work, great comedic sensibilities. This movie owes a debt to British sitcoms and perhaps repays it with an otherwise innocuous Dylan Moran appearance that literally seems to be an episode of Black Books intruding on the movie for a couple minutes.
Notting Hill is structured, like Four Weddings, of episodic segments spread over a long period, of the two leads meeting each other and parting, only this time without a consistent theme to their encounters. It’s hardly original in this presentation and its basic premise and propensity for pop song montages make it an easy target for ridicule by genre detractors seeing it as an embodiment of every saccharine, sentimental device of the romantic comedy format. There are good faith arguments against it of course. I’ve made mention of the fact that William is doing pretty well all things considered, his pining woes coming from a place of privilege; but in conjunction, with that, the movies’ unconscious whitewashing can make it look especially naïve. You don’t have to live there to know that Notting Hill is famously multicultural, yet nowhere is that apparent in the movie, already a very white narrative. I mean, Richard Curtis is friends with Lenny Henry, Sanjeev Bhaskar is right there in the restaurant scene, either of them could have been plunked into the friend group among Grantham, Alice, and Darling. And there’s the fact that in spite of Curtis’ public intention for the story, the film doesn’t really say anything about how dating a Hollywood star would impact a relationship, given theirs is a secret and not so much “dating”.
But it can’t be denied this movie has one of the best pieces of romantic dialogue. When Anna says “I’m just a girl standing in front of a boy asking him to love her”, it’s the kind of line some would roll their eyes at, others would mime vomit, but it sticks, it’s memorable –as much as “you had me at hello”. It’s meaningful and emotional and earned. Add to that an ending inspired by Roman Holiday and a wonderful bookending use of Elvis Costello’s “She”, and I think Notting Hill remains an ultimately sweet and charming romance, transcending with humour and empathy its formulaic prejudice.
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