I Liked Notting Hill. 

I was reading The Guardian this morning. One of the writers admitted to liking the film, Notting Hill. He was embarrassed. It was as if he had clubbed a baby seal. Well, I like the film too. 

I love a sappy, happy ending love story and this one fills the quota of “love will win out over every obstacle.” Love doesn’t win out all the time and my life is testament to that. But I still believe in love against all evidence and all experience. 

Please read the full review below. 

James Pilant

My guilty pleasure: Notting Hill | Film | theguardian.com

Films are there very largely to give you pleasure: they are pleasure-giving devices, and if a film succeeds in giving you pleasure, shouldn’t you have the courage of your convictions and own up to it? So it is with mixed feelings that I nominate Notting Hill in this category, directed by Roger Michell and written by Richard Curtis — his 1999 followup to the 1994 smash-hit Four Weddings and a Funeral. It is widely panned but I enjoy it, and whenever it is showing on ITV4 as I flick channels I always find myself stopping to watch. It was in fact the first film I ever wrote about for the Guardian.

Cast: Hugh Grant, Julia Roberts, Rhys Ifans, Richard McCabe

It is the story of a shy, floppy-haired bookshop owner (Hugh Grant), a lonely divorced guy who has a wacky Welsh mate called Spike (the role made Rhys Ifans a star) and who falls in love with a Hollywood A-lister, played by Julia Roberts. His heart gets broken. So does hers. Then they get unbroken.

via My guilty pleasure: Notting Hill | Film | theguardian.com.

From around the web

From the web site, Timothy Haslett’s Blog.

http://timothyrhaslett.wordpress.com/2014/02/03/why-we-all-love-notting-hill/

Like most good British romantic comedies, it’s the cast. In this case the two lead actors: Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts. Hugh Grant is the quintessential romantic comedy lead. If he had been in the troop of travelling players in Hamlet he would have been the actor for  Plautus but not for Seneca. He is perfectly pitched for this film, as is Julia Roberts.

Who else could deliver the line (ranked as one of the top 10 corniest lines of all times) “I’m also just a girl standing in front of a boy asking him to love her”? Can you imagine Cate Blanchett being able to do that? I suspect it would be completely beyond her.