Notting Hill Case Study

Plot-

Notting Hill is about the life of a bookshop owner in Notting Hill whose life changes when he meets the most famous film star in the world.

Notting Hill was released on May 21st 1999 and was directed by Roger Michelle. Richard Curtis who is a commonly used Writer/ Director for Working Titles films and was produced by Duncan Kenworthy wrote the screenplay. Trevor Jones composed the score films score and Michael Coulter did the cinematography for the film. Notting Hill follows the typical Working Titles formula of having a female American actress as the lead female role within the film who works alongside a true gentleman. The film is also set in London which is a location that an American audience will be able to locate. This film is a typical British Romantic Comedy.

Overall the film was successful received by the critics and at the time became the highest grossing film of the year. Overall in the box office it $363 889 678 (USD). With an estimated budget of $43 million US Dollars. The whole film has a running time of 124 minutes. Working Titles films, whilst collaborating in partnership with PolyGram Filmed Entertainment, bookshop production and Notting Hill Pictures created it. It was distributed by Universal pictures for the U.S.A, Ploygram Framed Entertainment for the UK, Budapest Film for Hungary, Columbia TriStar Egmont Film Distributors for Finland, Edko Films for Hong Kong, Filmes Lusomundo for Portugal, PolyGram for Germany, United International Pictures for Argentina and Switzerland, Universal Pictures France for France. Warner Sogefilms for Spain and American Broadcasting Company for the US. There were also many more distributing companies that were used to distribute the film globally.

Cast:

Julia Roberts as Anna Scott, Hugh Grant as William Thacker, Richard McCabe as Tony, Rhys Ifans as Spike, William’s housemate, James Preyfus as Martin the assistant in William’s book store. Tim McInnerny as max, Gina Mckee as Bella, Emma Chambers as Honey, William’s sister and Hugh Bonneville as Bernie.

Music:

The film score was originally composed by Trevor Jones, the score was then recorded by Gareth Cousins who also mixed some of the songs for the film, along with Simon Rhodes. Once produced there were some extra songs that were added by outside artists which include, Elvis Castello’s cover of Charles Aznavour’s ‘She’ and Ronan Keating’s specially recorded cover of ‘When You Say

Nothing At All’ which reached number one in the British charts. The film’s soundtrack album was released by Island Records.

Awards Season:

Notting Hill won the award for most popular film voted for by the audience at the 2000 BAFTAs. It was also nominated for the Alexander Korela Award for outstanding British Film of the year as well as Best performance by an Actor in a supporting role for Rhys Ifans. At the British Comedy Awards the film won best comedy film. At the Brits it won the best sound track. Whilst attending the Empire Awards the film received the awards for best British FILM, best British director and best British Actor for Hugh Grant. Finally the film received three Golden Globe nominations

Notting hill received a 7.0/10 from the International Media Data Base as well as 4/5 from Empire and an 83% from Rotten Tomatoes.