Notting Hill

August 25, 2018 - Julia Roberts is just a girl asking Hugh Grant to love her in this PG-13 romcom from 1999. The cast includes Rhys Ifans, Gina McKee, Emma Chambers and a pre-Downton Abbey Hugh Bonneville.

Roberts plays American movie star Anna Scott. One day, she pops into a travel book shop in London's Notting Hill neighborhood. William Thacker (Grant) owns the shop and does his best to steer Anna toward a travel book written by someone who has actually travelled. After Anna leaves the shop, William leaves to go get some orange juice. He promptly runs into Anna, spills the OJ all over her, and then invites her to his house across the street to clean up. Thus begins a romance that starts and stops and starts again over what appears to be the course of about two years.

Overall review: *** Roberts easily fills her role as a woman trying to find a balance between real life and the life of a movie star. Grant is at his charmingly flustered best. The supporting cast holds up their end of things admirably. Overall, there's not much to dislike here, which is probably why it's another one of those movies that I watch whenever I happen to come across it.