?It was nice to meet you? surreal, but nice.?
-Hughes Grant
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Love stories and I have never had a smooth sailing in our relationship. It surprises a lot of people when they hear me say that I find love stories too emotional?after all I am the most geek-headed crybaby in the whole neighbour hood and heaven forbid you from repeating this anywhere. The reason I don?t like watching love stores a lot is simple?lots of times, they?re all about sex. And I don?t like that too much, thank you very much.
Don?t you see pearly white wings flapping from my back and a golden ring on my head and a hollow of light around me?
Well you actually see two red horns and a pointed tail. Eh?
So, as I was saying, I don?t really like love stories so much and when I watch one, I give a very nasty report about it most of the times. But ?Notting Hill? was an exception. Here?s why it?s so?
Notting Hill?The Theme
Notting Hill is a movie that is, in it?s own subtle way, trying to find an an answer to a question that most of us leave unanswered?What is love all about? The movie has been made in such a manner that it says everything that can be said as an answer. Love is not about sex, nor about the fact that lovers are of opposite sexes. Love is about understanding each other?s feelings and dreams and feeling keen and earnest, sincerely from within the heart, to help your loved one reach those dreams and ambitions. Love is about two persons dissolving into one, to live as one person distributed in two bodies. Love is like the seamless joint between your arm and your shoulder or your neck and your torso.
And I could go on. Fortunately for you, I won?t.
Notting Hill provides a wonderful and masterfully subtle answer to the question?the same question to which I gave the cheesiest and the most irritating answers. The characters played by Julia Roberts (who plays a famous actress of America who desperately wants to live like a normal girl) and Hughes Grant (who plays the role of a normal guy in Notting Hill, England who works in a travel book shop)?the characters in the movie, I was saying, and their relationships with each other have been shown such as they would speak out the answer to the question, ?What is love about??
Love doesn?t come with sex. It goes the other way round. Correct me if I?m wrong, but a large number of people don?t think that way. And it reflects in a number of our movies. But it doesn?t in Notting Hill. The movie shows just exactly how a love affair of a normal guy begins. It shows exactly what would happen if the girl he has his heart on were a famous actress who earns in millions and works in movies that send shockwaves across the world (at least, I find the movie in agreement to what I believe would happen between the two of them).
Notting Hill is a realistic depiction of an event that may sound unrealistic, but is not. It is certainly possible that an actress as famous as Anna Scott (who is played by Julia Roberts) falls in love with a book shop owner. Of course, more possible if he owned Crosswords. But the theme will do for being realistic as well.
Furthermore, Notting Hill is a far more realistic depiction of a normal British family (my impression of a normal British family being derived from books based on England that i?ve read). It shows how an average family?average meaning a family where the man of the house doesn?t light his cigars with fifty-pound leaves and the mother won?t toss an 20 gram gold coin to decide whether Spaghetti Bolognaise is better or Canneloni Florentine?it shows, as I was saying, how an average family would be and how the relations between it?s members be.
And even furthermore, it doesn?t show that Hughes Grant, who plays an obvious underachiever (and as it turns out in ironically one of the jolliest scenes of the movie, the worst underachiever of his family), that this Hughes Grant becomes someone incredibly successful as you find in certain movies of recent times.
Ten stars for being almost real.
Notting Hill?Julia Roberts and Hughes Grant
With due regards to all other members of the cast of Notting Hill, I would like to say that none of them required any superior kind of acting which could be the reason why they impress as well, though I would be polite enough not to say so myself.
What makes Notting Hill surreal is the acting of Julia and Hughes. It is undescribable in words as to how difficult it is to play the roles they?ve played. Imagine yourself as an actor playing the role of a commonplace shopowner whose heart has been shattered by an actress who earns millions of dollars from a single movie and lives in Beverly Hills. Certainly, this was a difficult job to do and Hughes Grant, contrary to my former belief that he is only a pretty face, does the job superbly well. As far as his job goes, it has been done far better than I had expected. At every stage of the movie, Hughes portrays the expressions and emotions of the young man we?ve described a few lines earlier with sublime excellence. To feel the turmoil of that young man is one thing, and to show that turmoil on the face without acting like Govinda (forgive me) is another thing?and the latter is nearly impossible.
Julia Roberts? job was, I believe, a shade easier. She is a famous actress who earns huge sums and lives in locations we can?t afford to even take a tour of. Or may be we can, I don?t know. All she had to do was to act like a girl as famous as Ana Scott falling in love with a commonplace, not-so-well-off guy from almost unheard of Notting Hill.
And believe me, this isn?t any easier either.
Julia Roberts, with her naturally charming personality and such a wide smile, portrays the role of Ana Scott beautifully, to say the least. To be a famous actress who knows that her fame stands as the biggest obstacle between her and any man who she loves and who knows that in not very long time, her career will be over and then she will remain ?a middle-aged woman who looks something like a woman who was very famous a little while ago? is difficult. And to play her role, even more so.
Morover, when a girl who is Ana Scott, comes to face the reality that her popularity will follow her like a strong and persistent perfume and come in the way of her and the man she loves, her feelings and her emotional turmoil are difficult to fathom, in the first place. To understand them, to feel them and to depict them is a job that needs superb skill and, like we congratulated Mr. Grant for having them, let us congratulate Julia Roberts for showing them.
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My apologies for the inconvenience.
