Notting Hill (film)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Notting Hill |
| Original title | Notting Hill |
| Country of production | United Kingdom , USA |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1999 |
| length | 119 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 6 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Roger Michell |
| script | Richard Curtis |
| production |
Tim Bevan Richard Curtis Eric Fellner Duncan Kenworthy |
| music | Trevor Jones |
| camera | Michael Coulter |
| cut | Nick Moore |
| occupation | |
| |
Notting Hill is an American - British comedy film from 1999 . The main roles are played by Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant , and the director is Roger Michell . The film was nominated three times for the Golden Globe Award and was based on a screenplay by Richard Curtis .
action
Anna Scott, one of the most famous actresses in the world, happens to meet William Thacker, the owner of a small bookshop in Notting Hill, London . She visits the store at the moment when Thacker catches customer Rufus stealing a book. Rufus, who recognizes Anna Scott, asks her for an autograph. In addition to her signature, she writes down that he belongs in prison.
A little later, when William fetched a drink for his employee in a kiosk, he ran into Anna Scott on the road back and accidentally doused her with orange juice. He asks her to go to his house, which is nearby, so that she can wash and change clothes there. As best he can, he tries to make small talk and offer her something to drink or eat. He describes the encounter as "surreal but beautiful". She then kisses him spontaneously and leaves the apartment.
A few days later, William learns from his roommate that an Anna has left a message and invited him to her hotel. There he is mistaken for a journalist and sees her again during a slapstick-like press conference. Finally, Anna is invited by William for his sister Honey's birthday.
The surprise of the birthday guests at the company of the otherwise rather shy William is great. One of the guests, Bernie, only learns from his friends that the companion Williams, whom he asked about her job, is the actress Anna Scott, who is actually known to him. The star proves to be very sociable, so that it will be a fun evening for everyone, during which William and Anna get closer.
After the birthday party, Anna and William get into a locked park, where Anna kisses William one more time. After another evening with a trip to the cinema and dinner in a restaurant, Anna takes William to her hotel room. However, Anna's friend Jeff King unexpectedly awaits her there. In order not to embarrass Anna, William pretends to be a hotel employee with his presence of mind, so that he can hide the precarious situation and say goodbye. The incident not only disappointed him, it hurt him deeply. His lovesickness forced him to think about Anna all the time. His friends try to arrange meetings with other women for him, but none of them go beyond a first meeting.
Months later, some newspapers publish older nude photos of Anna. On her flight from the press, she hides with William. Both spend romantic hours together, tie in with the unintentionally interrupted evening in the hotel room, get very close again and finally sleep together. The next morning comes the nasty surprise, because William's apartment is besieged by reporters. It turns out that his roommate Spike bragged about the presence of Anna Scott in the pub the night before , which is why the paparazzi are waiting in droves on the doorstep in the hope of another scandal. Anna is furious, knowing that her relationship with William will lead to new compromising photos and further fuss about her without her being able to defend herself. She therefore abruptly breaks off the meeting with William and escapes from the apartment.
Months later, when William believes he has overcome his lovesickness and announces this to his friends, he learns from his best friend Max that Anna is again in London to film. William visits her on the set , but happens to witness how she announces in front of a curious colleague that William was only a casual acquaintance and was almost a nuisance. He leaves the set injured again.
Shortly thereafter, Anna appears in William's bookstore and explains the situation on the film set: She assures William that she really loves him, but that she did not want to reveal this to her unlikeable film colleague. She gives him the original of the valuable painting "La Mariée" by Marc Chagall , a copy of which she saw hanging in William's apartment. She asks him not to see her as the famous actress anymore, but as a simple girl who only begs for his love. However, William replies that he couldn't cope with another disappointment. Desperate and fighting back tears, Anna leaves his shop.
William meets again with his friends and receives support from them by looking for arguments against a relationship with Anna. Only Spike finally opens his eyes that his refusal was a mistake. With the help of his friends, William arrives at the last second at the press conference that Anna gives shortly before she leaves. One of the journalists asks her how long she will be staying in London. She confirms that she will leave immediately after the press conference.
William, pretending to be a reporter again, asks Anna amid the crowd of journalists if she would stay if he confessed to being a fool. She is asked again how long she intends to stay in London and replies: "Forever", whereupon the reporters and photographers understand that the alleged reporter is William himself and he immediately with their cameras and Besieging questions.
The film ends with scenes from their wedding reception. On the wedding cake you can see, artistically alienated, the goat, which is also depicted on the gift Chagall painting. In the credits, Anna and William sit relaxed on a park bench in the park where they first kissed, Anna heavily pregnant: a perfectly normal, happy couple.
Reviews
Most of the film critics gave the film a high entertainment value; according to Rotten Tomatoes , 81 of the 98 film reviews examined were positive. According to the consensus of critics, the film offers a lot of romance due to the good and charming actors.
Dennis Lim comes to a negative judgment when he compares the film in the weekly newspaper The Village Voice of May 26, 1999 with the comedy Four Weddings and a Death , for which Richard Curtis had also written the script six years earlier and Hugh Grant one of the Main roles occupied. He implies that Julia Roberts also plays herself in the role of the selfish and unsympathetic Anna Scott. The "exaggerated awkwardness" Williams in the portrayal of Hugh Grant is getting more and more uncomfortable by the minute.
Tobias Diekmann from Filmstarts calls the film “a thoroughly amusing and lovable comedy”. He not only praises the main actors, they “harmonize perfectly with each other in their roles”, but also highlights certain supporting roles that steal the show from the main actors time and again with “lovable sidekicks [...]. Above all, Rhys Ifans convinces as a crazy flat-share buddy, who can score the laughs on his side with original T-shirts and an inimitable feeling for the biggest faux pas. Ifans always manages to keep his character a bit above the pain threshold of the embarrassing, without degenerating into a mere caricature that would get boring after the third scene. ”Diekmann emphasized the“ dialog joke […] that comes across as surprisingly biting ”. All in all, the film is “clearly one of the good romantic comedies and, thanks to excellent actors and a fast script, it can set some new accents in this constantly recurring genre. It is not often the case that these can be seen in the secondary characters, and so it is all the more worth mentioning. Ultimately, Grant and Roberts are solely responsible for the romance, so that both elements are in a good relationship to one another and make this film [...] charmingly stand out from the crowd.
Frank Ehrlacher shares Diekmann's opinion on the quality of the script, the dialogues and the cast of the film. "Every role here is excellently filled, weaknesses are not to be found."
Awards
The film was in 2000 in three categories for the Film Award Golden Globe nominations: Best Actress (Julia Roberts), Best Actor (Hugh Grant) and Best Comedy . The film won the BAFTA Award in the Audience Award category in 2000 . In addition, Duncan Kenworthy , Roger Michell and Rhys Ifans were nominated for the BAFTA Award.
Julia Roberts, Rhys Ifans as actor and the film as Best Comedy were nominated for the 2000 Golden Satellite Award . Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant were nominated as Most Popular Couple for the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Award in 2000. Julia Roberts received another nomination for Most Popular Actress . Hugh Grant, Julia Roberts, Rhys Ifans and Emma Chambers were nominated for the 2000 Blockbuster Entertainment Award . Hugh Grant, Roger Michell as actor and the film for Best British Picture won the Empire Award in 2000 .
The film won the British Comedy Award , the Golden Screen and the Bogey Award in Silver in 1999, the Peter Sellers Award for Comedy , the Evening Standard , the Brit Award for Best Soundtrack and the Hungarian Csapnivaló Award in 2000 .
The German Film and Media Evaluation FBW in Wiesbaden awarded the film the title valuable.
background
Part of the film was shot on location in Notting Hill and in Kenwood House Park . The cost of producing the film was approximately $ 42 million , of which $ 15 million was paid for Julia Roberts. Anna Scott mentions the same amount in a scene in the film in which she is asked about her last fee.
The original idea of the script was the surprise of the people from Notting Hill at Anna Scott's appearance at the birthday party. As part of the promotion of the film, Julia Roberts was asked by the editors of Marie Claire magazine to attend a private party in the apartment of the single bookseller Sasha Jarolim in New York . Neither the host nor the other guests were informed about the identity of the surprise guest by the editorial team. There too - as in the film - some guests did not recognize her straight away, others were immediately amazed. A female guest first asked Julia Roberts about her job, got the answer “actress” and unsuspectingly asked about the plays in which she had been seen.
In 2003 the film had worldwide revenues of approximately $ 300 million. Thus Notting Hill is considered - after Pretty Woman - the second most successful film with Julia Roberts.
In a scene not used later in the film, William introduces Anna to his parents. But this scene occurs in the trailer that was shown in the cinemas.
In a long street scene, shortly after Anna escapes from William's apartment, William walks melancholy through a street market . The scene is musically accompanied by the song Ain't no sunshine . The seasons change from summer to spring. A pregnant woman from the beginning of the scene can be seen at the end with the baby in her arms. Williams' sister Honey is freshly in love at the beginning and breaks up crying at the end of the scene. The scene actually consists of several parts and the transitions are recognizable. The individual cuts were concealed by objects in the foreground in the sense of invisible cuts , similar to how this was already practiced in 1948 in Alfred Hitchcock's film Cocktail for a corpse .
The song When You Say Nothing at All was recorded by Ronan Keating especially for the film as the first solo single after his time with Boyzone . The original song was written by Paul Overstreet and Don Schlitz and has already been published by Keith Whitley , Alison Krauss and Paul Overstreet.
Individual evidence
- ^ Notting Hill. In: rottentomatoes.com. Retrieved March 18, 2017 (English).
- ↑ "Star Knitting" , The Village Voice Dennis Lim, 26 May 1999
- ↑ a b c d review , film starts , Tobias Diekmann
- ^ A b "" Notting Hill "- Film Content and Criticism" , Frank Ehrlacher, March 5, 2007
literature
- Lars Penning, “Julia Roberts” , Bertz Verlag, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-929470-36-5 , pp. 111–118, 148–149
- James Spada, “Julia Roberts. The Biography ” , Hoffmann and Campe Verlag, Hamburg 2004, ISBN 3-455-09436-8 , pp. 367-380
Web links
- Notting Hill in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Notting Hill in the online motion picture database
- Notting Hill atRotten Tomatoes(English)
- Notting Hill at Metacritic (English)