- For places named "Notting Hill", see Notting Hill.
Notting Hill is a 1999 romantic comedy film set in the Notting Hill district of London, England.
The screenplay was written by Richard Curtis who had previously written Four Weddings and a Funeral. From that highly successful film, actor Hugh Grant, producer Duncan Kenworthy and other film crew members are reunited in Notting Hill.
Primary cast:
William Thacker (Hugh Grant) runs a bookshop in Notting Hill, London. Witty, cultivated and handsome, he hasn't coped well with his divorce and is currently sharing a flat with an eccentric Welsh wannabe artist named Spike (Rhys Ifans).
Thacker encounters world famous Hollywood actress Anna Scott (Julia Roberts) during her trip to London when she enters his shop to buy a book. Shortly after they accidentally collide in the street causing William to spill orange juice down both of them. He offers his flat as a place for them to get changed. Anna accepts and they retire to his digs.
Right from the start their love affair seems to be doomed. Although Anna feels at home with his circle of friends, William more and more realizes that he is not cut out to be a famous actress's boyfriend. First he is shocked when he finds out that she has an American boyfriend (played by Alec Baldwin) although Anna asserts that they have broken up. Some time later, after they spent the first night together at William's flat, careless talk by Spike down at the pub results in a throng of reporters at their doorstep trying to take their pictures. She leaves in a hurry, and William decides once and for all to forget her. However, over the months that follow, none of his friends' attempts to find him a girlfriend is successful.
Anna Scott shows up at his bookshop once again, willing to resume their love affair. Only after he has rejected her and she is gone again does William realize that he has just made the biggest mistake in his life. He and his friends search for Anna before she can leave for the United States, and in one of the final scenes, at a press conference, he can persuade her to stay in England with him.
Award nominations:
The soundtrack of the movie features an Elvis Costello cover of the Charles Aznavour song "She" [1].
Quotes:
- Anna Scott:' "I've been on a diet every day since I was nineteen, which basically means I've been hungry for a decade. I've had a series of not nice boyfriends, one of whom hit me. Ah, and every time I get my heart broken, the newspapers splash it about as though it's entertainment. And it's taken two rather painful operations to get me looking like this."
- Honey: "Really?"
- Anna Scott: "Really. And, 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 a while."
Last updated: 05-16-2005 21:28:42
