Review of Notting Hill, directed by Roger Michell

If you’re new here, and stumbled upon this blog through the mythical powers of the Internet, welcome! I know a lot of visitors to my website are people who randomly come upon this website through search engines like Google, but I also do have a lot of visitors who come back. Regardless: my name is Ashley, and I started this blog in order to keep track of everything I’m coming across in the world.

For three years I worked professionally as a film critic, and while going to all of the film festivals and interviewing directors and actors was cool for a while, but I wanted to reclaim my time and watch movies I wanted to watch. Sometimes watching all of the new releases is great, and behind ahead of the curve, but I feel like I was falling so behind on movies I was genuinely excited about.

So I quit and decided to focus on this blog, and fell back more into literary criticism. I also randomly fell into a period of unemployment because of unexpected circumstances, and I took a long and hard look at my finances and realized I had enough to take time off. I did end up doing that, traveled for a bit, applied to jobs, and found myself working on the blog now more than ever.

That means in-between all of this, I was catching up on all of the movies I’ve been meaning to watch throughout the years, but never got around to. If watching movies ever becomes your job, you start to get consumed by all of the new releases and trends, then lose focus on everything you actually want to watch. I’ve touched on this already, but this era I’m in is about self-love and what interests me.

But when you’re spending a lot of time grinding out applications and whatnot, you want to find some movies that make your brain shut off. And that was how I actually ended up watching Notting Hill on this day: I wanted a cute little movie that wouldn’t make me think too hard, and I landed on this.

Let’s get into the review!

While abroad, a famous American actress falls for a charming bookstore owner.

In this movie, we first meet our male lead: William, a guy living and working in Notting Hill within London. He’s someone who is down on his luck in the romance department, as his wife left him for another guy and they got divorced because of it. He now lives in a flat by his bookstore with a roommate that’s fairly sloppy, but things are about to change for our dear William.

One day, while he’s working in the bookstore, a famous American actress, Anna, comes in and looks through the books. She ends up picking a book out, then leaves. William, after she heads out, goes to buy a juice for his coworker, but he runs into Anna along the way, spilling all of it on her. He feels bad, so he offers to bring her into his flat so she can change.

Things are really awkward there, but for some reason Anna decides to kiss him on the way out anyways. She invites him to the Ritz Hotel, where she is having press for her newest film, and when he arrives, the staff thinks he’s a part of the press junkets and brings him in as an interviewer. She laughs it off and asks him if he would be fine with bringing her on a date to his sister’s birthday party.

He agrees and they go to the party together. All of his family are shocked to see him with her, but they treat her like a normal human being. After they leave the party together, she kisses him in a park. They meet again the next day to eat out together, but find a group of men trashing her and calling her a prostitute like other actresses.

This pisses William off, so he defends her to them as they realize she was sitting right there. She then asks him to come back to her apartment, but turns out her real boyfriend, Jeff, has arrived in town. William is upset to see the truth and leaves, much to Anna’s dismay. They don’t contact each other for months, but William is unable to get over his love for Anna.

One day though she randomly shows up at his door, and explains she needs to hide from a scandal and she no longer is with Jeff. They end up having a deep conversation and sex, but when the paparazzi show up the next morning, she thinks Will has betrayed her. More time goes by, and he’s still unable to get over her. When he learns she’s back in London to film a movie, he decides to go to the set and see her.

She agrees to meet him after filming is done, but he hears her dismiss him to another worker and leaves. Anna shows up at the store the next day and he tells her what he heard, and she declares her love and begs for another chance. He says no. Everyone in his orbit agrees with his decision except for his roommate, then they realize this is for him love wise adn look for her.

He finds her at a press conference, where she announces she’s taking time off from her career. A reporter asks about the photos with William and she says they were just friends, but then he directly asks among the press if they can be something more and forgive each other. She says she’ll stay in the UK, and they get married and have a kid together.

Overall Thoughts

I’ll have to admit: romance typically isn’t my kind of genre, and when I was watching this movie, I found myself cringing more than nodding along to it. The way they get together and have this push and pull just doesn’t really appeal to me as a movie lover, but I can see how someone else might love it.

The leads are great, even though their characters and their motivations aren’t the best. Sometimes romance movies have good writing with the characters, and I think that’s why I was frustrated with this movie. I wanted something with more depth to it, even though there are some interesting messages about male loneliness and being a female actress.

I think it’s an okay movie—that’s what I am trying to say. I don’t hate it, but I also don’t love it in the end.

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