Notting Hill

Year of release : 1999

Run time : 2h4m

Genre : Romance / Comedy

Cast : Julia Roberts, Hugh Grant

William owns a small travel book store in Notting Hill, London. He is divorced, as his wife left him for a man who looks exactly like Harrison Ford, his words not mine.

One day, as a man is trying to steal a book from his store, famous Hollywood actress Anna Scott, enters his shop, and buys a book.

Later on, coming back from a store with orange juice, he bumps into Anna Scott, and spills the drink on both of their shirts. He offers to let her change at his place, not too far from where they bumped into each other. Anna accepts.

After she leaves, she comes right back, as she forgot the book she bought from his place. And kisses him.

His flat mate tells him a few days after, that Anna called a few days before, asking to call her at the Ritz, using another name, like Flinstone.

He goes to see her and ends up at a press event for her latest movie, so he lies he is from the Horse and Hound magazine. He ends up playing the interviewer, and he is taken to the other actors, whom he doesn't know, and doesn't know what to ask them. He doesn't know who Leo DiCaprio is! I think they could have asked real celebrities to play the actors or even play themselves in that scene. It felt like a missed opportunity.

He is finally asked by Anna to go out with her that very evening, and he tells her he can't as it's his little sister's birthday. So she joins him.

His friends love her, and can't believe their eyes.

The evening goes well, and they spend even more time together that evening, by breaking into a private park.

They have another date, going to a movie, and then dinner, where they hear some men from a table close to theirs trash talking her. William feels the need to defend her honor, and goes to them, which makes her confront them too.

Wanting to spend the night with him she invites him to her hotel room, but when he goes up, her boyfriend is there, and he pretends he is the waiter. She only tells him he needs to go, for her boyfriend is there, and that's the last time he hears from her! Real classy!

After, for probably, half a year, he tries to get over her, as his friends keep on setting him up with normal women.

Anna comes to see him when she is back in London. Luckily for her, he didn't move on. She is hiding at his place after some pictures of her resurfaced from where she was young. They end up doing the nasty, and the next day, the paparazzi are at his door.

She flees upset as if he's to blame for everything wrong in her life, and he doesn't hear from her for what it seems to be a year!

The movie started well, but the actress was very indecisive, the moment she started dating him was the moment she broke up with him without any other word, just "sorry and bye!". This happens 3 times, and I found her very unlikeable. At the end of the movie,when she comes to see him, after he finds out that she was in town filming (she came to see him on the last day of her being in London after he went to see her and left because he heard her talking trash about him!), he says he can't be with her, and then his friends tell him he's an idiot because she is famous! As if someone being famous is enough for anyone to want to date them, as if that makes them a better person!

All this back and forth started to annoy me, after a while. I personally liked his friends more, they were funny. And the scene in which he is interviewing the actors without knowing what to ask.

I liked the scene in which seasons change as Will walks through his neighborhood, showing us how much time passed. It seemed it was a year, because we see the same people, like a pregnant woman and then her with her child (who didn't look a few moths old), but they tells us it's only been half a year.

They only spend a few days together in total, as every time they see each other, they are together for a few days, a few hours!

Everything happens from his point of view, we only see him, we don't know what she does when she is not with him. The story takes place in London, mostly, his neighborhood.

They straightened Julia's hair for this one, and it looks weird.

The movie was very predictable.

Notting Hill is the neighborhood he lives in,in London.

The actors were fine. Alec Baldwin makes a cameo as Anna's boyfriend, some Hollywood celebrity.

The soundtrack was fine, I guess, I didn't like it. It won Best Soundtrack at the Brit Awards.

The movie received positive reviews, and was nominated for 3 Golden Globes (Best Movie-Musical or Comedy, Best Actress, Best Actor) and 2 BAFTA awards, winning 3 Empire awards, for Best British Film, Best British Director, Best British Actor.

Cinema Score audiences graded the movie a B+.

The movie grossed 364 million dollars at the box office, against a budget of 42 million, being the highest grossing British movie of all time.

You can watch the full movie here, for free :

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9hs05o

Rating : Could have been a contender !