It's much easier to write a review of a terrible movie than it is a good one. Though David Manning-gate provides us with evidence to the contrary, it's true. I admit it. It's simpler to poke fun at John Travolta's hairline or Tom Cruise's nipples than to utter even faint praise for anything Hollywood has to offer. But when Hollywood is willing to mock itself, there's really not much for me to say, is there?
Well, of course there is. (Hyperbole makes for a good introduction.) Notting Hill is an interesting exercise in metacommentary. Julia Roberts plays Anna Scott, a Hollywood actress just as famous as...Julia Roberts. Alec Baldwin plays her swarthy, yet famous boyfriend. The opening credits use actual footage of Julia gleaned from Entertainment Tonight. There's lots of name-dropping and a special commentary on Mel Gibson's use of a butt double (apparently, he does his own stunt work in this area).
But there's more to it, and here's where it gets good. I never really thought much of Hugh Grant until I saw this movie, but he's absolutely wonderful here. Though he's playing basically the same part he always plays--Hugh Grant--it's sort of fitting, seeing as the whole film is self-referential. Furthermore, Grant allows himself to be completely vulnerable, rather than just fidgety and charming, in his role as Willam Thacker, a travel book store owner and hopeful romantic. He accepts each setback as though he knows he is undeserving of happiness: after he overhears Anna dismiss an inquiry into his status in her life by saying that he's "no one," William pauses, blinks, and says "'Course," as though he has just read that page in the script of their relationship. It's all very meta.
From the moment Scott and Thacker first meet in his quaint Notting Hill shop, you know where it's going to end up, but you don't mind hanging along and watching it all play out. What keeps things from getting tedious are the humourous moments (most of them courtesy of Grant and Rhys Ifans, who plays Thacker's unkempt flatmate) and watching the underlying theme of success play out in its various permutations. Thacker's bookshop is a bit of a flop, but he seems to measure success by his own happiness; his friends come together to support one another and celebrate their successes; and Anna's awareness of the disparity between her own ideals and Hollywood's comes into light with her admittance that "...one day, not long from now, my looks will go. They will discover I can't act, and I will become some sad middle-aged woman who looks a bit like someone who was famous for awhile."
None of this, mind you, would have been as good if the film had been set anywhere other than Notting Hill. The cinematography is gorgeous (particularly in the "Ain't No Sunshine" sequence), and for Anglophiles like me, it doesn't get better than Thacker's little blue flat with the blue door. I know it's just a reverse form of Orientalism to covet and exoticize British culture, but what can I say? Living in a commonwealth country has left its mark on me. Apparently, I'm not the only one: I've read that the real house has had its door painted black to deter fans and would-be visitors, and the words "This is the Hollywood door" have been spraypainted next to it.
Anyway, I got a lot of laughs out this movie, and maybe, perhaps, a few tears. Not to mention a newfound crush on Hugh Grant. Maybe someday he'll wander in to my place of business and I'll "accidentally" spill some orange juice on him--hey, it worked in a movie I saw once.
-reviewed by the ladybug, May 14, 2002
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