Friday, November 2, 2012

Notting Hill (1999, UK)

I was reading (and loving) this book called From Notting Hill with Love... Actually by Ali McNamara, basically a chick lit whose main character loves chick flicks. Of course she mentions this one constantly, and since I've never seen it, I decided to give it a go.

So, eh. To start with, I just have never seen the appeal in Hugh Grant. Sure, I liked him in Bridget Jones as the skeazy Daniel Cleaver, and he's definitely attractive, but his nice guy roles are never that enjoyable to me. I like Julia Roberts quite a bit, and one of my all-time favorite chick flicks is My Best Friend's Wedding, but for some reason I had a bad feeling about this one. Maybe it's the smirk she has on in poster.

Yeah, the concept was cute, but I wouldn't it make more sense for a chick flick to be about a famous man falling for a normal woman, instead of vice versa? I mean, that would make the predominant audience swoon. (Though I do love a man in a bookstore!)  And the whole romance was really sweet. The spilling orange juice, the awkwardness of the first meeting... but then she randomly kisses him and it feels very disjointed, and that's the whole basis for their continuing relationship. I feel like if the initial attraction made more sense and flowed more smoothly, the good parts about the rest of it would have seemed great. (For instance, him having to interview her and pretending to be a journalist from Horse & Hound!)

And okay, I always say that I love Rhys Ifans and he is an under-appreciated actor, but in this case, I had too much of him the second he was on the screen. His character is dirty, both literally and figuratively, and he just made my skin crawl. Why was he there? Sure he made Hugh Grant's character look even more charming (and normal!) in comparison, but for the most part his ewwww factor completely took away from the story. For that alone, I went from a 3.0 to a 2.5.

There are better chick flicks out there. I need to go have a Bridget Jones lovefest to rinse this one out of my brain. And just as a side note, in case anyone is even reading this or cares, apparently there's going to be a third Bridget Jones movie. Now that's what I call good news!

Rating: 2.5

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