Rating: 
Summary: One of my favorites - a real gem!
Review: This is one of the relatively few "romantic comedies" that lives up to both ends of the deal. Usually you get far more of one than the other. This movie strikes an excellent balance. I saw Notting Hill in the theater twice, which is highly unusual for me. The first time was with a girlfriend and we both thoroughly enjoyed it. So much so that I dragged my husband along the second time. He even had to admit that he really liked it. Hugh Grant is so charming in this movie. And Julia Roberts is very believable and likeable in this flick. It's a twisted modern day fairy tale of sorts and it is extremely well done. Every bit of the cast is fantastic although Hugh and his roommate steal the show in terms of comedy. The soundtrack is immensely fitting and also worth the purchase. If you liked anything that either Julia or Hugh have done, you will love this one!
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely Fabulous movie!!!
Review: As a huge Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts fan, you can see why this is my all time favorite movie. Hugh Grant is funny without trying to be. He has such a natural wit about him. This movie has it all, humor, charm, and melt-your-heart moments that we all secretly hope for in our own lives. Not to mention a terrific soundtrack featuring the song "She" by Elvis Costello.
A famous movie star Anna Scott(Julia Roberts)finds herself in a bookstore in Notting Hill London owned by William Thacher(Hugh Grant). A few moments after she leaves he once again bumps into her and thus begins the story. To him, she is a fantasy and to her, he is a normalcy she has never had.
And the supporting cast........HILARIOUS!!!! Only one word to say here....SPIKE!!!! He alone keeps your side in stitches. And what about little sister Honey??? Another outrageously funny character.
This is a wonderful movie and if you haven't seen it you are truly missing out.
Rating: 
Summary: Hugh is great
Review: While this Collector's Edition disc seems to offer a lot of extras, they actually add up to little more than a "Hill" of beans. The six deleted scenes were mercifully excised (they include a sappy alternative ending and a positively painful scene with Hugh Grant's bookstore owner and his parents); the feature commentary, with director Roger Michell, producer Duncan Kenworthy, and writer Richard Curtis, natters on. (We learn, gratefully, that Curtis sold his Notting Hill house--behind the film's famous blue door--for a bundle. Good timing.) One highlight: Grant's very funny, Lettermanesque behind-the-scenes tour.
Rating: 
Summary: Notting Hill
Review: Unbelievably, Hugh Grant turns down Julia Roberts and the next moment he's announcing this to a roomfull of friends. They, without too much effort, convince Grant that he's made a terrible mistake. Then, they all immediately pile into a car (including his friend's wife in a wheelchair) and race to Roberts's hotel, breaking every traffic rule along the way. Couldn't Grant have quietly come to a realization without involving his odd circle of friends? And couldn't he have gone to try to see Roberts without dragging them all with him? I think that's what an American leading man would have done. This was an obvious effort to "build up" the ending, using all of the supporting characters. It was needless and you can see right through the scriptwriter's intentions. Also, my apology to Rhys Ifans, but I think he actually hurt the film and should have been left on the cutting room floor. He made the film hard to take seriously, which I really wanted to do.
Rating:
Summary: Surprisingly entertaining movie in spite of Julia Roberts
Review: This is a great comedy vehicle for Hugh Grant -- sardonic wit etc. Julia Roberts is acceptable because the role (essentially she plays herself) is not too taxing on her very limited acting ability. The supporting cast is quite funny -- especially the flat-mate. The finale with Elvis Costello attempting to sing like a grizzled Charles Aznavor is hilariously kitschy. Overall a surprisingly entertaining movie in spite of Julia Roberts.
Rating:
Summary: Classic
Review: In an act of good faith, "Notting Hill" begins with the awesome Elvis Costello singing the song "She". This would imply that the movie is all about how Hugh (and you) is going to fall in love with Julia Roberts. Not so fast. Julia is hardly the perfect object of desire here that she is in her earlier films. She's shallow, and flighty, and has a shotgun temper (okay, okay, she's still got that great smile, but bear with me here for a moment). So this movie breaks one of my first rules of romantic comedies: I *must* fall in love with the girl. But like another of my all-time favourites, "Say Anything...", it expertly portrays how the boy in question falls for said girl (even if I can't), and makes me believe that it is not only possible for him to do so, but unstoppable despite the odds against him.So what's wrong with Julia here? Well, let's face it: she just doesn't turn in a very good performance. She seems to be trying to prove her character right when she says, "I told you I couldn't act!" She has not the low-key wit or stuffy self-deprecating sense of humour to pull of the decidedly British script. But the irony is that no one else on the planet could have played this role, or at least played it as convincingly. Her character, Anna Scott, is the Julia Roberts of the "Notting Hill" parallel universe: a commercially hyper-successful actress who longs not only for respectability, but also trucks full of attention. Anna only comes out of her shell when William pronounces her "heavenly", a trick I've seen Ms. Roberts fall for in dozens of interviews. Now, I admit that Julia does deserve all the credit in the world for at least being willing to poke fun at her persona. A telling scene around a dinner table involves a sorriest sap contest for the last brownie. Anna tells of her ten years of dieting and her plastic surgeries, all in an attempt to postpone the "day, not long from now when [her] looks will go, they'll find out [she] can't act and [she'll] become a sad middle-aged woman who looks a bit like someone who was famous for a while." To the script's credit, her dinner companions don't fall for this sad tale (one tempered, minutes before, by her own admission that her last film paid her $15 million), but for at least one moment, Julia's own off-screen fears (or at least as I imagine them to be) are laid flat on the table. The film works for me, mainly, because Hugh Grant plays the 'boy' role. Grant and screenwriter Richard Curtis have worked together three times by now ("Four Wedding and a Funeral" and "Bridget Jones's Diary" being their other collaborations), and every time the outcome has been pure gold. Grant is an expert at portraying this kind of character: witty and plain, genuine and straightforward, stumbling but elegant. In the early scenes with Julia, where his William Thacker appears to want to jump over the counter and maul the famous celebrity who's just stepped into his little travel book shop but can't because of his British reserve, he is charming and vulnerable all at once. And I think Hugh is the only actor working today who could respond to a question like, "Can I stay a bit longer?" with "Stay forever," and not make it sound false or melodramatic. Coming from his mouth, it sounds heartbreaking and real. As for Curtis, he's managed a deft and funny script that puts a new spin on the boy-meet-girl/boy-loses-girl/(spoiler omitted) genre, while throwing in some slick Hollywood satire to help it all go down easier (he's fashioned a hilarious junket sequence ('Horse & Hound') that trumps anything a later Roberts film, the bland "America's Sweethearts", came up with). He captures true sentiment, even through such an unbelievable and fantastic situation as this one. And just like I wouldn't mind seeing Hugh Grant in this kind of role over and over again (with slight variations), if Richard Curtis would spend the rest of his days writing witty screenplays wherein Yanks fall in love with Brits who are egged on by a group of eccentric friends, I'd be terribly happy. Curtis himself has noted the obvious resemblance between "Notting Hill" and "Four Weddings and a Funeral"; let's hope he forgets the repetition next time he sits down at the keyboard. Similarities aside, the background of "Notting Hill" is populated with a number of interesting and noteworthy performances. Tim McInnerny and Gina McKee play William's best friends; he's the world's worst cook, she's consigned to a wheelchair. Their love is palpable and endearing. Hugh Bonneville plays a sad-sack stockbroker friend. Emma Chambers is William's nervous sister. And of course, the wonderful Rhys Ifans nearly steals the show as Spike. Sure he gets to spend a lot of time wandering around in his underpants (not to mention a memorable little moment in a scuba suit), but Ifans never goes over the top to mine laughs from the character. Far from it. He's low-key, almost droll in his portrayal of the man who Will casually describes as little more than a "masturbating Welshman". Where it was an act of good faith in the beginning, meant to endear itself to the audience when they didn't know what was coming, the use of Elvis Costello again singing "She" near the end perfectly sums up the movie: "Me, I'll take her laughter and her tears / And make them all my souvenirs / For where she goes I've got to be / The meaning of my life is she". It's a sappy sentiment, but following a movie that revels in its own status as such high-grade sap, it's also a perfect sentiment.
Rating: 
Summary: Pleasantly Suprised!
Review: Not being a Hugh Grant fan and not being a Julia Roberts fanatic I didn't even bother to see this movie when it was released in the theaters. But I was glad that I rented it. It was a pleasant romantic-(semi)-comedy movie. I found myself feeling so sorry for Hugh's character and Julia's had me up and down, in and out, liking her and disliking her. Both did a fine job but this poor man was a glutton for punishment. It's like that when you are in love, hopelessly. You keep going back for more and more rejection, followed by hope (can you tell it didn't work for me?). Anyway - after I saw the movie I was enchanted with it. A very good movie and a nice suprise.
Rating:
Summary: Good, old-fashioned romance for modern times
Review: Notting Hill is one of my favorite romantic comedies, right up there with Harry Met Sally and Sleepless in Seatle. I've read that some people call this film "preposterous" or "completely unbelievable". In fact, I thought this movie very believable, centered around one realistic, if highly improbable, "what if?" What if an ordinary fan courted and married a movie super-star? Hugh Grant plays an ordinary guy who has a chance meeting with international film star Julia Roberts (there was some other name for Roberts' character, but for all purposes, she is playing herself). A simple hello and a spilt cup of OJ kick-starts Grants romance with this very mysterious person, sweeping him into the crazy movie-star-life of press junkets and gossip reporters. The perfect film-image of Roberts is shattered with the reality that she is a very closed, cautious person with a sharp tongue. And yet, as all perfect romance movies do, the hard shell is gradually peeled back to reveal a very loving person inside. I found the earthly Grant too be much more charming and interesting than the cold, distant Roberts, and I could associate with his character as he loved a person on a movie screen soo much that his heart broken. This film is a great "date movie", as it gives a lot to women without turning of men (there are some great jokes in there, just for the guys).
Rating:
Summary: One fine, funny romantic comedy
Review: Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant each appeared in two movies in the summer of 1998. Roberts starred in the smash hit, Runaway Bride, while Grant had top billing in the unsuccessful Mikey Blue Eyes. All this proves is that she can carry a picture, and he can't. Business and star politics aside, Notting Hill is easily the best summer movie they were in. The plot is as preposterous as they come, but this is permitted in romantic comedy. Grant plays William Thacker, who runs a little travel bookstore on Portobello Road in London's Notting Hill district. Roberts is Anna Scott, the biggest female movie star on the planet. This is amusing in itself, since Roberts is exactly that in real life. On location in England, Scott wanders into William's shop one afternoon. He doesn't even recognize her until a customer does. Later, he runs into in the street, where he spills orange juice all over the both of them. Accepting an invitation to clean herself up, she goes to his flat. Emotions begin to smolder. What unfolds is by the book boy meets girl, boy loses girl, etc., but it's all done in witty, bright and sophisticated fashion. Notting Hill utilizes two of the oldest Hollywood romantic devices - the two main characters have failed at love, and they come from social scenes that are polar opposites. Its writer and director are shrewd enough to know that these are tensions which can add the comedy to romance. She flounders in his world, and we laugh. He stumbles in hers, and we laugh still more. Even in the inevitable scene where their world collide, and the romance seems doomed, we find amusement. This is the best and most successful British comedy [excluding their trademark period pieces] since Four Weddings and a Funeral, which also had but one major American character. We get a parade of those eccentric English characters we adore. By far the funniest is Spike [Rhys Ifans], who is William's ditzy, clueless flat mate. Most of his best scenes cannot be written down for a family publication, but I can say that they are bawdy, as opposed to tawdry. Spike does not know how to dress, how to carry on a conversation longer than two sentences or how to react normally to life's simplest situations. He may be the one character who is most likely to also exist in the real world. Ifans is almost assured of receiving a Best Supporting Actor nomination next spring. Roberts and Grant are in top form. She doesn't grin her way out of every emotional moment, and he keeps his trademark stutter in check. It's hard to say how much real chemistry there is between them, but it hardly matters, because they are two of the most charming and affable actors on the screen today. Their performance are right up their with what I consider to be their best - she in My Best Friend's Wedding, he in Sense and Sensibility. The photography is excellent. One scene, in which William walks along Portobello Road as the seasons change, is remarkable. It's one of those complex-to-do creations that comes off as seamless and simple. Also of note is a moment where Spike, in his underwear, unwittingly opens the flat door and walks into a sea of screaming, photo-snapping journalists. It is a classic comedic moment. I don't think it matters all that much that the plot is a tried and true one. After all, the point isn't whether or not you paint a landscape, but how well you paint it. If Notting Hill were a painting, it wouldn't be a masterpiece, but it would be very pleasing to the eye nonetheless.
Rating:
Summary: Very amusing film, Julia really shines, but.....
Review: This is a great Saturday afternoon movie, but the ending was so badly ripped off the 1953 film Roman Holiday. Despite this amazingly obvious stunt, Julia Roberts shines once again, with Grant dithering around her. While Notting Hill is much funnier than Roman Holiday, Roman Holiday is a much more moving and romantic story (I think); I almost cried and for a 32 year old bloke who normally enjoys action and sci-fi, that's saying something.
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