Taking our RomCom Comfort Food out for a pop culture picnic at Notting Hill

Thank you once again for attending our RomCom Comfort Food luncheon, where we will be taking our main movie meal to a most charming location, 1999's Notting Hill.

Hugh Grant stars as Will, a recent divorcee and owner of a small travel book shop in the title section of London. One average day, a famous movie star named Anna Scott(Julia Roberts) walks in to browse and both of their lives are never quite the same.

After an amusing exchange involving a shoplifter who asks for Anna's autograph(she signs a piece of paper saying "Dear Rufus, you belong in jail" which the guy takes as a good joke before offering her his phone number!),
Will literally runs into Anna a very short time later, spilling a huge cup of orange juice on her and then offering to take her to his nearby "house with the blue door" for an emergency clean-up.

As she fixes herself up, Will becomes more tongue tied and nervous with his banter(a classic Hugh Grant trait) and as they say goodbye yet again, his parting words describe the situation as "surreal but nice", which Anna clearly finds to be accurate as she returns to offer him a surprise smooch:

This leads to a few romantic complications, one of which has Will trying to meet up with Anna at a press junket for her new sci-fi movie called Helix(sounds pretty cool, actually) and having to pose as a reporter for Horse & Hound magazine(not a very sci-fi type of publication there).

Eventually, Will and Anna's first date is at his sister Honey's birthday party that is being held at the home of his married friends Max and Bella(not to mention the future Lord Grantham, Hugh Bonneville, whose character Bernie is totally dense about who Anna is!).

Once the initial shock of Will bringing a famous person to dinner is over, the rest of the party goes off rather well, with everyone at the end of the not-so-well-cooked dinner having a mock debate contest over who deserves the last brownie on the dessert plate. Anna feels comfortable enough to chime in and the whole scene is bittersweet yet beautifully brilliant for all concerned:

The romance between Will and Anna becomes an on-again, off-again affair due to the complications that arise from her celebrity status and his growing doubts about being able to fit into her world.

Now, I know that when people think of this movie, the line they recall and love the best is "I'm just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her"-a well done cinematic moment indeed.

However, my personal choice is from an earlier scene, where the two of them are having a quiet dinner out and happen to overhear a group of louts at the other table joke about Anna being an "actress" in the less respectable sense of the term. Will does his best to call these jerks out without reveling Anna's presence but to no avail.

She does appreciate his effort but suddenly gets inspired to confront the table of leering creeps herself and the whole thing is hilarious, especially when Anna expresses her conviction of the origin of their "friendly banter":

My favorite scene, however, is rather sad. It's a passage of time montage after Will and Anna have a major breakup that includes the media landing on his doorstep, which cause a big league fight over how to handle such things. His laidback approach just doesn't work for her, not to mention his goofy roommate Spike(Rhys Ifans, who steals countless scenes here) having an unintended role in this situation does not help matters much.

 This sequence is set to the classic "Ain't No Sunshine" by the late great Bill Withers and it's simplicity is sweetly sorrowful. Yes, it's far from happy but I can't help feeling that it sums up such a lovelorn loss so perfectly:

On a brighter note, my Jane Austen connection for this film is director Roger Michell, who several years earlier was the directorial hand on Persuasion, a made for British TV production that was released in theaters in America.

That well received movie got me to read Jane Austen for the first time and part of the reason that Persuasion is my favorite Austen novel. While NH and Persuasion are set in very different time periods, the approach taken to the difficulties of love has a similar feel as both stories are given realistic tones that enhance the heartbreak and the humor.

Michell even has two of the actors from Persuasion( Samuel West and Richard McCabe) play minor roles in Notting Hill, a nice bonus for us Austenites and while he hasn't done another adaptation of Austen's work(one of his latest works was a remake of My Cousin Rachel), his flair for bringing parted lovers back together is a delight to behold:

For our film feast finale, what's better than a musical and a Jane Austen themed one, no less?

Our last RomCom Comfort Food entree is 2004's  Bride & Prejudice, where director and co-screenwriter Gurinder Chadha has"Bollywood meet Hollywood" in a lovely modern take on Pride and Prejudice.

Aishwarya Rai and Martin Henderson are our leads as the Elizabeth Bennet/Mr. Darcy with Marsha Mason doing her version of Lady Catherine and Naveen Andrews being a rather lively take on Mr. Bingley, if you ask me: