Quotes
(At a dinner party with William’s friends as they decide whose life is the most pathetic – thus earning the last brownie.)
Anna Scott: Wait, what about me?
Max: Sorry, you think “you” deserve the brownie?
Anna Scott: Well a shot at it at least huh?
William: Well, you'll have to fight me for it, this is a very good brownie.
Anna Scott: I've been on a diet every day since I was nineteen, which basically means I've been hungry for a decade. I've had a series of not nice boyfriends, one of whom hit me. Ah, and every time I get my heart broken, the newspapers splash it about as though it's entertainment. And it's taken two rather painful operations to get me looking like this.
Honey: Really?
Anna Scott: Really. And, one day not long from now, my looks will go, they will discover I can't act and I will become some sad middle-aged woman who looks a bit like someone who was famous for a while.
Max: (long pause) Nah, nice try gorgeous, but you don't fool anyone. William: Pathetic effort to hog the brownie.
Plot Summary
William Thacker (Hugh Grant) owns a travel bookstore in London. His life has fallen into a routine of going to work, evenings with friends, dealing with his eccentric roommate Spike (Rhys Ifans), and telephone calls from his mother. It’s a pretty normal existence until a world famous American actress named Anna Scott (Julia Roberts) wonders into his shop.
Against all odds, a friendship starts to develop between these two, which begins to blossom into a romance, but life steps in through a series of funny and sad moments. Will Anna be able to let go of her past hurts? Will William be able to handle dating a woman whose life is splashed across the front pages of newspapers every time she steps outside to buy a cup of coffee? Are they both willing to take a chance on love just one more time?
One more thing… Spike, William’s roommate, is a hoot!
Life Lessons
Princess Diana and I had one major thing in common; we got married the same year. As I went about my life, I peripherally followed hers on the evening news. I remember when her son William was born and seeing her holding him when they came out of the hospital, she seemed so happy then, didn’t she?
Later, there were times I thought she had a “hunted” look about her and I could not imagine what it must have been like to live under the microscope like she did, where every mistake you made was made in front of millions of people. She was not a saint, but I think people loved her because she wasn’t perfect – we felt she was like us, living life and doing the best she could out there in the trenches.
I remember I was having my breakfast when I learned from a news show that she had passed away in an accident in France – something to do with her driver, an underpass, and the paparazzi who literally and figuratively hounded her to death. I remember thinking at the time – they finally got her – those gals and guys with the cameras who wait like vultures to photograph a celebrity taking their child to their first day of kindergarten or for an ice cream. Come on now – when they are at a “working function” all right – they are fair game, but when they are “off the clock” and in their private life - isn’t that stalking?
I remember George Clooney held a press conference and one of the things he said was (and I am paraphrasing) “Princess Diana is dead and who do we see about that?” Say what you want about Princess Diana’s driver, we all know the paparazzi played their part in her death. They also had a partner in this crime – us or to clarify anyone who buys the grocery store tabloids that these paparazzi pictures appear in. You see it is as simple as this – if there were not a market for these pictures, the paparazzi would not be able to earn a living doing it and they would stop doing it…. so you know what you have to do….take that $5.00 you would spend on the “rag sheet” and give it to your local food pantry.
Notting Hill Movie Cast
· Julia Roberts as Anna Scott:
· Hugh Grant as William Thacker
· Emma Chambers as Honey Thacker
· Hugh Bonneville as Bernie
· Rhys Ifans as Spike
· Tim McInnerny as Max
· Gina McKee as Bella
· James Dreyfus as Martin
· Richard McCabe as Tony
· Dylan Moran as Rufus
· Alec Baldwin as Anna’s actor boyfriend Jeff
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