I'm Taking Pills And Getting Injections.

Ok, so I quite literally know every line from Notting Hill. Well, maybe not 'quite literally', but it'd be damned close. Close enough to piss off anyone watching the film with me (except one person, who also knows ever line.) I used to be embarrassed of my love of the film, back when I was young, innocent and at film school, but now that I'm older and realise that I have seen it more than any other film I am more than happy to include it in my list of favourite films of all time. Do you hear that? I AM NOT ASHAMED!


Ahem. I love it. There was a time when I'd watch it at least monthly, if not more often. This is the first time, I think, that I'd watched it since leaving Australia, though I may have watched it earlier last year.

I do have to stop myself from tearing up every time I watch this scene. For real.

I don't know what gets me about the film. I am a fairly devoted fan of Julia Roberts, here still only recently out of her mid-90s period where nothing really seemed to go as well as everyone had hoped, and playing a character that was totally a premonition of the person she was about to become, clutching her Oscar and to be seen filming most days on Hampstead Heath. Hugh Grant I can generally take or leave, but here he is given the perfect role, where he can pretty much play what he has always played opposite a beautiful and talented leading lady with a director (Roger Michell) hitting his stride and a gifted screenwriter (Richard Curtis) buoyed by an Oscar-nomination for his last rom-com. 


Roberts is Anna Scott, the biggest film star in the world. Grant is William Thacker, the owner of an unsuccessful travel bookshop, which only sells books on, well, travel, and to be quite honest doesn't always sell many of those. He spills an orange juice on her in the street, accidentally calls her a prostitute and the rest is history. What makes it work so damned well is the fact that I'm quite certain that every character was written specifically with the actor who played them in mind. And the collision of some hilarious writing, soppy sentimentalism, outlandish hope and a happy ending proved too much for the world to resist - it did take over USD$350mil worldwide back in 1999, which is, well, that's pretty good then, really.


I don't really have much more to say about it, though. I mean, I'm sure there are faults in the film that I could pick out if I wanted to, but I don't want to. I love it. The end. One day maybe I'll sit down and do a blow-by-blow, moment-by-moment analysis of what gets me in each scene or shot or something, but for today, just accept my love. And couple it with the knowledge that I know have an almost overwhelming desire to watch it again, just by talking about it. That's how much I love it. That much. And no one can talk me out if it. Believe me, people have tried. 5 stars.