Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Dear Jodie - N is for Notting Hill


For those here for the first time Jodie and I are doing tandem movie reviews, as we do for our Facebook page Dear Rocky Dear Jodie: The Actor and the Psychologist At the Movies.  We hope you enjoy them, find them provocative.  Whether you agree with us, or disagree please comment!  We welcome all comments.  As always, thank you, Arlee Bird and everyone who does such a magnificent job with this challenge!!!

Dear Jodie,

How's this for a line . . .

"And don't forget . . . I'm also just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her."

When I put Notting Hill on our suggestion list for the A-Z challenge, it was with the hope that you would suggest something else, like you did with a few of the others.

I couldn't think of another N movie without cheating, you see.  Coming up with something deranged like "N The Line of Fire," or "N-dianna Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" or "N-trapment" just wasn't going to work. 

Then you selected it, and I thought damn, I'm really going to pan a movie here.

Oh well, I thought, you can't like them all, and I didn't like this one when I first saw it.  Not in the least.

Then it became WTF if I'm going to pan something, I need to watch it one more time more recently than 1999 to get the specifics on why I hated this movie so badly back then.

So, there I sat, arms folded, the scowl of Somerset Maugham tattoo'd across my face, my heart frozen.

Two minutes in I laughed, and the laugh thawed my heart and loosened my face.

The fact is I watched Notting Hill with a different set of eyes than I had fifteen years ago.

The reasons why are unimportant.

I love this movie.  It's a romantic comedy with real humor and wit and charm, but it also with depth.  I've met a few movie stars.  Anna's line "One day my looks will go, and I'll be a sad middle-aged woman who looks like someone who was famous for a while," resonates with truth, but still points out a real fear among us, a fear of getting old.

Hugh Grant just shines as Will Thacker, and who better to play a hard-edged movie star, vulnerable to the core than Julia Roberts.  When she delivered the line "... I'm just a girl..." I believed every word of it and my heart went out to the woman who made $15,000,000 for her last picture, because she would have burned it all for a simple "yes."

And thank you, thank you, thank you, Rhys Ifans for your brilliant portrayal of Spike.

What would have been, without this recent viewing, a 3 out of 10 becomes 9 out of 10.

What did you think, Jodie!  I am truly curious!

Read Jodie's review here!

A poster with a large picture of a woman shaded blue on it is stuck to a wall. A man walks in front of it. 

7 comments:

  1. Sometimes a movie just creates a little get-away in your mind, nothing creepy or so dark you cannot sleep, but like this one, for those of us who don't live in the UK, we get a little slice of life of that part of London. Hugh Grant is easy on the eyes as well.

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    1. I would love to visit that part of London!

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  2. timing is everything in life. I liked Notting Hill the first time around and the second, etc. Glad you watched with an open mind and unfolded your arms. Neat A to Z - I found you thanks to CJ Schwartz recommendation.

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    1. I'm glad I did, too! Thanks for stopping by!

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  3. Gracious, I saw this one so long ago I barely remember it but I do remember that line, "I'm just a girl..." I'll have to peruse some of your other choices now. :)

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  4. A really interesting post. Thank you so much, nice to follow and connect through atozchallenge.
    http://aimingforapublishingdeal.blogspot.co.uk

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  5. Well there you go Rocky, I'm seeing things very differently with a lot of the films we've chosen that I haven't seen in a while. I'm almost scared to watch our Y selection just in case!

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