Notting Hill

I am married, have two kids still at home, and I have a job and a house.  My life is full, and I'm not complaining.  But it's SO full that I rarely can sit down and watch a movie from beginning to end.  Sometimes after the kids are in bed and the dishes are done, and I'm too tired to write, I collapse in front of the TV to watch 20 minutes of a movie, before I have to crawl off to bed.  It usually takes three or four days to watch a movie (sometimes spread out over a week or two).

Currently I'm watching Notting Hill, and I am loving it. 

I confess I'm an Anglophile.  Last year, I got to visit the UK for the first time, and since then my disorder has increased to ridiculous proportions.  Another confession: I picked Notting Hill to watch, among all the movies in the world, because it's set in London.

When you're in love, your beloved can do no wrong, and their faults are just charming quirks.  Sooner or later, that craziness wears off, but right now I'm still in love with everything British.  I imagine that the British are smarter than us, and more...decent.  Yes, "decent" is the right word.

And I'm not alone.  They think that about themselves, too.  Here's what Bill Bryson has to say about being a Briton:

Just by existing, by going to work and paying your taxes, catching the occasional bus and being a generally decent if unexceptional soul, you felt as if you were contributing in some small way to the maintenance of a noble enterprise -- a generally compassionate and well-meaning society with health care for all, decent public transport, intelligent television, universal social welfare and all the rest of it.  I don't know about you, but I always felt rather proud to be part of that...*

That's how I imagined the UK to be, and that's what I found when I was there.  But of course I'm not a reliable judge of these things, I can't see clearly.  The love thing, remember?

So, even though I'm only halfway through Notting Hill, I had to write about this thing I have, for this place I feel myself a part of, but very likely will never see again.

There's a person who embodies this British virtue in her work: Emma Thompson.  I absolutely adore her. In every movie I've seen her in, she's the moral center, the still point around which the movie turns. The apotheosis of Emma Thompson movies is...........Nanny McPhee.  You must see Nanny McPhee. I think it's in my top ten movies of all time.  And the sequel is coming out in a couple of weeks!

Wasn't I supposed to be talking about Notting Hill?  Right.  Okay: so far (remember I'm only halfway through), this movie illustrates what I'm saying exactly.  The Hugh Grant character, and his family, are shining examples of all that's right with the British.  They're funny, charming, self-deprecating, unaffected....decent.  And the Julia Roberts character IS America: fascinating, powerful, naive, and destructive. I can't wait to see how it turns out.

Now I'm all the way to the end of this post, and I realize I haven't said anything really shallow yet (at least not on purpose).  So now I will: Nanny McPhee features the extremely gorgeous Kelly Mcdonald.  Happy now?


* From Notes From a Small Island. To be completely accurate, Bryson is talking about an attitude he remembers but now believes is gone.  I think he's wrong about that.  Look at the most glaring example: the UK has had a national health service since the 1940's, and we are still too stupid to put something similar in place.