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Roger Michell's "Notting Hill" |
"Notting Hill" PollyGram: Director: Roger Michell. Producer: Duncan Kenworth. Writer: Richard Curtis. Cast: Julia Roberts, Hugh Grant, Hugh Bonneville, Emma Chambers, James Dreyfus, Rhys Ifans, Tim McInnery & Gina McKee. US/UK 1999. Another by the numbers British Rom-Com, not my normal cup of tea, but having just moved to the area it seemed almost required that I see the film. The result was to say the least bizarre, watching Huge walk the same streets I had just walked, passing the same buildings I had just passed. Culminating with me sitting in the balcony of the Coronet cinema in Notting Hill Gate, looking down at the screen showing Huge sitting in the balcony of the Coronet cinema in Notting Hill Gate, looking down at the screen showing Julia in a space suit. The foppish Hugh Grant falls for an American who only visits England on special occasions, resulting in an on/off relationship that drags throughout the seasons. Egged on by his wacky bunch of friends Huge eventually overcomes his neurosis and commits to the girl. Becoming one of the biggest grossing British movies of all time a follow up is soon in the works. This time round Huge is William Thacker proprietor of an ailing travel bookstore situated in the Bohemian environs of the eponymous Notting Hill suburb of London. The American is Anna Scott "the most famous actress in the world" (Roberts). The friend are a bunch of middle-class under-achievers, podgy failed broker Bernie (Bonneville), ditzy sister Honey (Chambers), mild mannered shop assistant Martin (Dreyfus), slobbish flatmate Spike (Ifans), balding best friend Max (McInnery) and handicapped old-flame Bella (McKee). Producer Kenworth reunites his writer Curtis and leading man Huge from the phenomenally successful "Four Weddings & A Funeral" for this coldly calculating 'equal'. Huge is his normal charmingly self-effacing self while Robert's is wasted in her headlining role as Anna given none of the comedy material despite adept performances in "Pretty Woman" and "My Best Friend's Wedding", required instead just to stand around with a smile plastered across her face looking pretty. Ifans displays all the star qualities he has demonstrated in "Twin Town" and "Dancing at Lhunasa" in his scene stealing performance as uber-slop Spike. The rest supporting cast is made up out of Curtis' TV friend's including The Vicar of Dibley's Chambers, The Thin Blue Line's Dreyfus and Blackadder's McInnery, but it is the brilliant McKee who shines out as the strongly independent wheelchair bound Bella. When leaving Birmingham I had none of the same regrets that I had upon leaving Derby and before that Nottingham, and I guess that the reason for this is that I had never fallen in Love in Birmingham, love has a strange way of heightening the senses and bringing a city to life, and it is this experience of Notting Hill that this film attempts to capture. So cinematographer Michael Coulter brings us lovingly realised shots of the area including crane shots and an impressive tracking shot of the Portobello Road market showing the passing of the seasons. Of course behind this hyper-real Notting Hill there is an actually real Notting Hill once a strong hold of the ethnic minorities colonised by the black labourers brought over in the fifties, but now undergoing gentrification as London's yuppie media elite (myself included) move into the area pushing up housing prices to the point that no real person can afford to live there. Curtis of course doesn't even consider these political implications, with not a single black face within spitting distance of Thacker's overpriced house. This has got to be one of the most expensive real-estate ads in History. The "house with the blue door" which features heavily in the film went on the market shortly after the filming was completed, it's proprietor one Mr. Richard Curtis. Overall I found the film nice, surreal but nice. |