Notting Hill
Year: 1999
Director: Roger Mitchell
Cast: Julia Roberts, Hugh Grant , Hugh Bonneville, Emma Chambers, James Dreyfus, Rhys Ifans, Tim McInnerny, Gina McKee, Richard McCabe, Alec Baldwin.
Set Locations:
London: W11 itself of course, but also Kenwood House in Hampstead and the Ritz Hotel
"Can the most famous woman in the world fall for the man on the street?" Well, if the man on the street happens to be Hugh Grant, then maybe yes!
Director Roger Michell's 1999 hit movie 'Notting Hill' stars Julia Roberts as Anna Scott, the most famous woman in the world, and Hugh Grant as William Thacker, the owner of a local bookshop.
Thacker's dreams come true as actress Anna Scott appears in his humble bookshop and against the odds love blossoms. He soon discovers that it is not all plain sailing going out with someone so famous. Between his own friends and the ravenous press hounds, he finds that he gets more than he bargained for.
The film involves a great many locations around Central London, in addition to Notting Hill , the area from which the movie gets its name. Anna and William can be seen at the Nobu Restaurant in Old Park Lane in the up market London area of Mayfair . The couple are also seen at the end of the film attending the premiere of her movie at the UCI Empire cinema in Leicester Square in London. Anna herself stays at The Ritz in Piccadilly.
Notting Hill itself is a popular area of London and well known prior to this film due to the annual Notting Hill Carnival . The event has been held annually since 1965 and is organised by London's Caribbean community, prior to that it had been held indoors at St Pancras Town Hall since 1959. The roots of this community were laid in London during the 1950's when many were tempted over to the United Kingdom from the Caribbean with the promise of jobs and a better standard of living.
The carnival is a celebration of Caribbean culture in the form of music, dancing and parades. It attracts somewhere in the region of one million participants every year, although the early history of the carnival was sometimes troubled. It was not accepted as an officially legal event for many years and this led to clashes between police and youths on many occasions, sometimes causing full scale riots. Eventually, with the support of public figures such as Prince Charles, there was a change in policy and the policing of the event was no longer directed at stopping it taking place but instead at helping it to pass safely and peacefully. This has helped to transform the carnival into an international tourist attraction.
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