Notting Hill

 Notting Hill Update 17 December 2021

 

Notting Hill 1999

• Director: Roger Michell
• Based on a novel: no
• Cast: Hugh Grant, Julia Roberts, Rhys Ifans, Richard McCabe, James Dreyfus, Dylan Moran, Julian Rhind-Tutt, Henry Goodman, John Shrapnel, Tim McIinnerny, Gina McKee, Hugh Bonneville, Emma Chambers, Alec Baldwin (uncredited)
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Hugh Grant - Music and Lyrics, American Dreamz, Love Actually, About a Boy, Bridget Jones’s Diary, Sense and Sensibility, Four Weddings and a Funeral, The Remains of the Day, Impromptu
• Julia Roberts – Closer, Mona Lisa’s Smile, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Erin Brockovich, Runaway Bride, Conspiracy Theory, My Best Friend’s Wedding, Michael Collins, Mary Reilly, The Pelican Brief, Hook, Sleeping with the Enemy, Pretty Woman, Steel Magnolias
• Rhys Ifans - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part One, The Boat that Rocked, Elizabeth the Gold Age, The Shipping News
• Richard McCabe – Wallander, The Constant Gardener
• James Dreyfus – Colour Me Kubrick, Richard III
• Dylan Moran – Tristram Shandy, Black Books, Shaun of the Dead
• Julian Rhind-Tutt – Merlin, Stardust, The River King, To Kill a King, Les Misérables, An Unsuitable Job for a Woman, The Madness of King George
• Henry Goodman – Taking Woodstock, Colour Me Kubrick, Cold Lazarus, Mary Reilly
• John Shrapnel – Merlin, Elizabeth the Golden Age, Troy, Gladiator, King Lear, Troilus and Cressida, Timon of Athens
• Tim McInnerney – Longitude, Black Adder, Richard III
• Gina McKee – In the Loop, Atonement, Divine Secrets of the YaYa Sisterhood, Naked
• Hugh Bonneville – Downton Abbey, Bonekickers, Daniel Deronda, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
• Alec Baldwin – The Aviator, State and Main, Glengarry Glen Ross, Prelude to a Kiss, Miami Blues, Great Balls of Fire, Working Girl, Married to the Mafia, Beetlejuice
• Why? Why not? – just a feel-good film. In London.
• Seen: Once before. Now May 25, 2014.  

London. We’ll be there in three weeks...! Not in Notting Hill though.

If I had a bookshop in Notting Hill, Colin Morgan, Adrian Lester, Kenneth Branagh or Johnny Depp are the famous people I’d like to walk in and buy a book and if one of them did I’d be even more of a dork than Hugh Grant. But not as funny.

Because he is. Hugh Grant. Very funny. Dumb but clever and loveably funny.  As is the whole film.  Flatmate Spike (Ifans) steals every scene he’s in and Dylan Moran of Black Books, (one of the funniest TV series ever) as the grungy shoplifter who denies that he just stuffed a book down his trousers brings a big laugh.

I’ve never quite liked Hugh Grant but every time I must admit that he’s right for the part (Colin Morgan would have been better but he was only thirteen at the time). I’m quite fond of Julia Roberts and I like her here too.

It’s a thoroughly unlikely story. Super famous film star walks into the tiny bookstore of obscure socially inept loser and after a lot of funny and sad complications they work things out. Surprise surprise.

It’s a trifle. But sweet. And funny.

And London. Maybe we’ll get to Notting Hill this time. 

3 * of 5

Update 17 December 2021 – ah, so miserly I was last time! Definitely 4* of 5 this time. It’s just a lovely film. Alas, we’ve still not been to Notting Hill.