'Notting Hill' or 'Love Found In The Movies'

There's something about Julia.  Hugh is beautifully dynamic.

Maybe it's the rain but, I'm quite introspective today.  Before posting any of my blogs, I tend to re-read them to try and ensure my initial point comes through.  While I read this, I realized my point came across, but it isn't what was originally intended.  Either way ...

I must admit, when I first saw the movie "Notting Hill," shortly after it came out in 1999, I thought it quite boring.  I think I might have even fallen asleep.  I'm not sure what it was - the dialogue, the acting, the fact that it seemed to be about absolutely NOTHING at all - I just couldn't grasp the concept.  I think it's because I had never been in love.

I watch it now (I'm currently watching it on the USA Network) and I fall in love with both Julia and Hugh and their relationship as a whole.  It's the quintessential love story.  Two people who were not "supposed" to be with each other, find themselves thrust into a gravitational pull neither one expected, nor could they explain.  It's just the way he looks at her - he immediately is enamored each and every time she comes into a room.

I have two favorite "moments" within the 124-minute film.  The first is their original moment of lovemaking (did I just use that word? SMH).  After many missed or botched opportunities and extenuating circumstances preventing them from any real possibility of physical intimacy, the time comes and you can just FEEL how much he desires her.  Even moreso, the screen literally seems to pour out every ounce of how much he is enamored with her.  The way he gently caresses and strokes her back appears to show a bit of worship for her skin.  He's already in love with her before he even has an opportunity to realize it.  He takes a pause and glances at her face in the dim light and says, simply, "Wow."  Her smile shows that she is taken aback but slightly uncomfortable because she CLEARLY realizes this is the first time anyone has actually seen her in this way - or even at all, for that matter.  She knows he's honest - he's genuinely seeing *her* for the woman she is, not the successful actress.  The next morning they have an exchange of words:

Anna Scott (Julia): Rita Hayworth used to say, 'They go to bed with Gilda; they wake up with me.'
William Thacker (Hugh): Who's Gilda?
Anna Scott: Her most famous part.  Men went to bed with the dream; they didn't like it when they would wake up with the reality.  Do you feel that way?
William Thacker: You are lovelier this morning than you have ever been.

He isn't looking for any recognition ... just genuinely expressing his affections for her.  Have you ever heard anything so beautiful?  You can just about see the puddle she melts into.

My second favorite moment is toward the end of the movie.  After Anna realizes she has been exhibiting a great deal of childish antics - "having behaved so badly" - she apologizes, in her own way.  She brings him a gift from her apartment, an original painting by an artist he likes (she noticed a print of it in his "flat" earlier in the movie).  She's nearly shaking with nervousness and worry.  She doesn't know what he will say and she doesn't know if she's ruined every hope of being with the first person to see her for who she is.  She proceeds to ask him for reconciliation, dancing about the concept as best she can.  Ambivalence and vulnerability can be read all over her face.  Through nervous laughter and timid hand wringing, she opens herself up for every possibility of response.

He considers his options, matching her trepidation with his own fears of doing what's right for himself while attempting to spare her feelings at the same time.  He ultimately says, "I'm a fairly level-headed bloke - not often in and out of love.  But, uh ..." He pauses and states, simply, "Can I just say no to your kind request?" He doesn't want to cause either one any pain but feels compelled to explain, though he doesn't want to.  He touts their vast differences as rationale - he lives "in Notting Hill" and she "in Beverly Hills."  He says, "Everyone in the world knows who you are. My mother has trouble remembering my name."

In an attempt to explain that "the fame thing isn't really real," she says (arguably one of the most profound lines of any love story ever told), "I'm also just a girl ... standing in front of a boy ... asking him to love her."

How can you beat that?

It's a story of love in such a way that you feel they are doomed before they begin, yet they are still drawn to each other by that invisible gravitational pull.  There is a magnetism that causes them to continue returning to each other, though the odds are stacked against them.  It's a love we can't understand unless we've been with another in such a way to validate its very existence as even true at all.  It's a love that seems to transcend any and every trouble around you.  It's a love that lends itself to a certain comfort level whereas all your worries/woes/concerns seem to fade away whenever you're near this person.  It's a love where you think about the person all the time - even when they are right there next to you.  It is a love that is, in a word ... true.

So yea ... I used to feel like Notting Hill was boring.  It was a movie that induced eye burning for lack of allowing them to just close.  I don't think I actually saw the whole thing from start to finish for a really long while.  I just felt as if it was not worth watching.  That is, until I found love.  I now find that I must watch it whenever/if ever it should come on.  I'm compelled to watch it.  I fall in love with it each time and realize something new about love every minute.  It doesn't help that it is one of his favorite movies.  I think I just realized the first time I saw the complete movie in one sitting was with him.  **sigh**  Him.

**sigh**

I. Miss. Him.