Notting Hill

There are two very simple reasons so many romantic comedies are so bad: no romance, and no comedy. Fortunately, Notting Hill does everything a romantic comedy is supposed to do right in its story of a London bookseller (Hugh Grant) who gets involved with an American film superstar (Julia Roberts). The romantic side works because writer Richard Curtis and director Roger Michell develop the relationship in stages, from abstract attraction to personal understanding to jarring dose of reality. Both stars give assured, engaging performances that still include rough edges of humanity, and the versatile comic scripting glides from the broad (Rhys Ifans as Grant's slovenly flat-mate) to the silly to the subtly satirical. Although Notting Hill makes the mistake of clocking in at a weighty 125 minutes, sports a dragged-out denouement and some occasionally disjointed editing, these are easily surmountable objections. Recommended. (S. Renshaw)