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Having long avoided romcoms, I shrugged off my gendered preconceptions and gave this love story a chance

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As someone who’s taken it upon himself to be knowledgable about film, I’ve long been aware that Richard Curtis occupies a high-ranking throne on romcom Olympus – that was a kingdom I felt little impetus to explore. In recent years, as part of my desperate need to be seen as a feminist ally by my peers and colleagues, I’ve been shrugging off my gendered preconceptions and giving love stories a chance; it generally goes well, as I’ve developed a taste for the syrupy brand of escapist comfort they offer. Combine that long-term initiative with this American’s desire to further immerse himself in the culture of his employers across the Atlantic, and a long-overdue viewing of Curtis’s 1999 boy-meets-girl story Notting Hill seemed in order.
Charm is the petrol that fuels the romcom, a genre that hinges entirely on the audience liking the two people on screen enough to want them to have good lives. In that respect, any judgment of the film is in a direct sense a judgment of Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant, individually and as a unit. That they can stand up to such scrutiny will surprise none of the $364m-worth of viewers who made the droll tale of a bookish dreamboat’s dalliance with a Hollywood idol a megahit. Both Grant and Roberts project enough natural intellect to sell the witty-to-a-fault banter of Curtis’s script, though the specific nature of their magnetic draw to one another sticks out to a present-day viewer. Continue reading...