Latest news with #RichardCurtis
Times
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Times
Notting Hill's selfie-takers are ignoring one thing: the movie's a turkey
What has been the biggest disappointment of my life? Along with losing my virginity and seeing U2 at Wembley, it was probably when the film Notting Hill came out in 1999. A romance that isn't romantic, a comedy with no good jokes, this intolerable follow-up to Richard Curtis's almost flawless Four Weddings and a Funeral sees Hugh Grant's cringing bookshop owner meeting Julia Roberts's odious actress, spending the night with her before deciding, bewilderingly, that they can't be together, then changing his mind after she gives him an original Chagall and jumping in a car for a faked-up 'rom-com run' to tell her that he loves her before she gets on a plane — which presumably, if she had, would only have meant he had to wait until she landed, when he could have given her a call. Spoiler alert, by the way. Now it turns out that this swizz, this stone-cold Turkey Twizzler of a movie, is still causing people pain a quarter of a century later. This month it was reported that residents in the candy-coloured W11 streets where it was made have had to endure fans of the film, more recently joined by Instagram influencers, thronging the pavements to get pics for their social media feeds. Some have the gall to enter the front gardens to get the right shot. They make a lot of noise. They leave rubbish behind. Locals are so irritated that a number of them have taken the desperate step of painting their homes black. What enrages me most, though, about this is the evidence it provides that there are still people out there who think Notting Hill is a good film. • Hugh Grant's best performances — ranked Let's summarise. Curtis scored a surprise hit with Four Weddings by casting Grant as a posh avoidant who panics when he sees all his posh friends getting married, until the death of a slightly older posh friend forces him to get serious. Solid. Relatable. Crammed with good jokes. The screenwriter's next move was to cast Grant as a posh avoidant with a group of posh friends, including (again) one with a disability and a working-class flatmate. Again he's in love with a glamorous American out of his league. Jokes are repeated. 'F***ety f***!' Grant exclaims in the first film. 'Shittety brickety,' he mutters, less plausibly, in the second. The laziness of all this is compounded by the film's incredibly unconvincing disavowal of privilege, which in fact it would do far better to own. In Four Weddings, Grant's friend Tom cheerfully admits to being the seventh richest man in England. In Notting Hill, even though all the characters are obviously loaded, they claim to be poor. Grant's friend's restaurant is failing. His own bookshop, located in prime real estate just off Portobello Road, is struggling to stay afloat. Yet he owns a house with a roof terrace in the heart of Notting Hill, which (a glance on Zoopla reveals) would now be worth £3 million. Need another way to relate to these guys? They're all total losers, we're assured. Grant's sister Honey works in 'London's worst record store'. His friend Max is 'the worst cook in the world'. His friend Bernie is 'the worst stockbroker in the whole world'. His friend Tony is 'the worst restaurateur'. His flatmate Spike is 'the stupidest person you've ever met'. The film is imbued with a bizarre glorification of uselessness that is epitomised in the notorious 'brownie' scene. Personally I have always struggled to care for a brownie (there's something twee about the very word), yet here it randomly becomes the prize in the sob story Olympics. One of Grant's posh friends can't have children. Roberts has no self-esteem. And so on, and so on. Supposedly a classic, the scene is actually weird and depressing. • Inside the ultimate Notting Hill bachelorette pad Vulnerability is winning. Self-contempt, less so. Given that Americans are supposedly unable to understand our tendency to talk ourselves down, it's hard to know what Roberts sees in Grant, unless it's the fact that he's the only person on the planet who is arguably better-looking than her. That said, she has some off-putting qualities herself. She's rude one moment, needy the next. And she has zero dress sense. The teenage crop top she wears in one early scene is a very odd choice. When she sports a man's tie in the Ritz, it's meant as a tribute to kooky Diane Keaton in Annie Hall. But it leaves Roberts looking like a pantomime horse. Speaking of kooky, the entire last scene — the press conference in the Lancaster Room at the Savoy Hotel — is ripped off from Roman Holiday (1953). In that much better film, Audrey Hepburn's celebrity princess reveals her love for a journalist in the crowd with a carefully nuanced answer. In Notting Hill, Roberts does something similar with a less nuanced one. We then cut to a shot of the pair relaxing together in a residents' garden, reading Captain Corelli's Mandolin, of all things. Just as Chagall (along with Munch and Dalí) is the top-dollar painter for people who don't like painting, Louis de Bernières' middle-brow blockbuster is the book for people who don't read. And Notting Hill is the film for people without eyes. (And Ronan Keating's When You Say Nothing at All, which plays over one key scene, is the song for people who lack access to any of the five senses.) It's fashionable to make a noise about how much you hate Curtis's next big rom-com, Love Actually (2003). But in fact, Love Actually is far from being the worst in his rom-com oeuvre. It contains one or two good jokes and Emma Thompson's heartbreaking turn alone makes it worth a watch. Not so Notting Hill. It's time we called time on the idea that there's any merit in this slow, insipid, neighbourhood-wrecking stinker.
Daily Mail
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Julia Roberts reunites with Notting Hill director Richard Curtis 26 years on from smash-hit romcom after refusing to star in sequel
Julia Roberts has reunited with Notting Hill director Richard Curtis, 26 years on from the romantic comedy's premiere on the weekend. The actress, 57, is currently in the UK as she attended the 30th birthday party of Richard's daughter Scarlett Curtis. Writer Scarlett had told her fans how she 'wanted to burst' and felt 'so loved' as she shared a glimpse from her celebrations. In a video posted to her Instagram stories, Julia and Richard could be seen smiling as they caught up with one another. The old pals sung along to a group rendition of Carole King classic You've Got A Friend whilst cuddled up in the corner of the room. From A-list scandals and red carpet mishaps to exclusive pictures and viral moments, subscribe to the DailyMail's new Showbiz newsletter to stay in the loop. Julia also used her visit to London to attend this year's Soccer Aid as the Hollywood actress was spotted at Old Trafford for the charity match. Notting Hill grossed an impressive $368million at the box office following its release and was received well by critics. The flick also bagged three nominations at the 57th Golden Globe Awards including for Best Actress for Roberts' portrayal of Anna Scott. However, despite its roaring success, Julia refused to return to the role for a planned sequel over the proposed storyline. Richard, 68, explained how her character was set to divorce William Thacker, who was played by Hugh Grant. 'I tried doing one with Notting Hill where they were going to get divorced,' Richard said. 'Julia [Roberts] thought that was a very poor idea.' When previously asked about revisiting any of his previous films, the About Time director said he was satisfied with his work on Red Nose Day and Comic Relief, where he wrote mini-sequels to Love Actually. 'I don't think so,' he told IndieWire. 'We did those mini-sequels to Love Actually, and those satisfied me.' Meanwhile, Julia previously opened up on her initial reservations about playing the lead role in the romcom. The Oscar winner told Vogue that she struggled with the character, who is a hot-tempered Hollywood actress. Speaking to Curtis, for Vogue, Julia said: 'Honestly, one of the hardest things I've ever had to do was [Notting Hill], playing a movie actress. I was so uncomfortable! 'I mean, we've talked about this so many times, but I almost didn't take the part because it just seemed—oh, it just seemed so awkward. I didn't even know how to play that person.' Her discomfort with the character went beyond the acting, as Roberts also had issues with her costume. She said that she 'loathed' being dressed as a glamorous movie star.
The Guardian
06-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
What is Britain's elusive 'national character'? The Ballad of Wallis Island might just tell us
It is, according to no less an authority than the romcom king Richard Curtis, destined to be 'one of the greatest British films of all time'. But don't let that put you off. For The Ballad of Wallis Island – the unlikely new tale of a socially awkward millionaire who inveigles two estranged former halves of a folk-singing duo into playing a private gig on his windswept private island – isn't some floppy-haired Hugh Grant vehicle, but a reflection on our national character that is altogether more of its times. It's a lovely, melancholic comedy about the acceptance of failure, loss and the slow understanding that what's gone is not coming back: an ode to rain and cardigans, lousy plumbing and worse puns, shot in Wales on a shoestring budget in a summer so unforgiving that a doctor was apparently required on set to check for hypothermia. Its main characters have not only all messed up at something – relationships, careers, managing money – but seem fairly capable of messing up again in future. Yet as a film it's both gloriously funny and oddly comforting, taking a world where everything seems to be slowly coming adrift and making that feel so much more bearable. There's no such thing as a national character really, of course; or at least no set of indisputably British traits on which 68 million people could ever all agree. Yet there's a clear pattern to how we like to see ourselves represented on screen – endearingly hopeless, perennially mortified, well-meaning but liable to be eaten alive by Americans – which is telling. There was much flapping recently about polling showing only 41% of generation Z say they're proud to be British, a steep decline on previous generations. But it remains unclear whether the issue here is gen Z, or the idea of Britain in which they have lately been expected to take pride. If Britishness didn't seem quite so puffed-up and aggressive, so relentlessly focused on who is deemed not British enough; if it could simultaneously embrace a more self-deprecating, more tolerant, distinctly embarrassed sense of national identity, would that be one with which some people felt more comfortable? For we are not, fundamentally, a 'make Britain great again' kind of place. Even when our politicians deliberately try to evoke the Maga spirit, they do it (thankfully) badly: Britain's answer to Elon Musk's terrifying Doge ('department of government efficiency'), as launched this week by the Reform party, is headed by some tech dweeb you've never heard of whose role essentially boils down to poking round Kent county council looking for 'waste', before presumably discovering that he hasn't really got the power to fire anyone. With all due respect to Rachel Reeves's mission to rebuild the nation, meanwhile, the most recognisably British part of her big speech on investing in infrastructure this week was that it revolved around regional buses. The pinnacle of our national ambitions is no longer to rule the waves but just to be able to get into Huddersfield a bit faster than previously, along a road with slightly fewer potholes, and it's time to own that with pride: this is, goddammit, who we really are. For this is the nation that made a copper-bottomed hit out of How to Fail, Elizabeth Day's podcast in which guests cheerfully spill the beans on all the ways they have screwed up at life; a nation that can't accept a compliment to save its life, and knows that if by accident you ever become good at something then you'd better make up for it fast by stressing just how bad you are at something else. (In this week's published extracts from How Not to Be a Political Wife, a British title for a memoir if ever there was one, the demonstrably successful and well-connected Daily Mail columnist Sarah Vine returns again and again to the failure of her marriage and the impossibility of keeping up with high-powered friends: she's been in the newspaper business long enough to know her readers would infinitely rather hear about the fall than the rise.) We dwell with relish not just on our individual failings but on our glorious national defeats, memorialising all the football tournaments we ever lost on penalties and weaving heroic disasters – Scott dying in the Antarctic, the retreat from Dunkirk – into our national story. We are the country that turned 'we're shit, and we know we are' into a sporting anthem; that treats failure less as a necessary stage of innovation than as a steady state to be lived with, like the weather. Our tendency to assume things will go wrong certainly has its drawbacks – not least a tendency to regard unalloyed good news with crabby suspicion – but it perhaps makes us more philosophical when they do. Not so much a land of hope and glory, as one of perennial mild disappointment. In the past, this unerring ability to puncture our own balloons might have been a healthy trait, a safeguard against a world power getting carried away by its own importance. Of late, the same Eeyorish diffidence feels more like a way of coming to terms with inevitable decline. But either way, tucked inside The Ballad of Wallis Island is the germ of a national story: struggling to tell other people how we really feel about them, in the rain, but still somehow finding reasons to be cheerful. If that's not a version of Britishness we can all get behind, what is? Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist
Metro
05-06-2025
- Business
- Metro
Your pension pollutes more than planes — here's how to make your money do good
You recycle your yoghurt cartons, watch your carbon footprint and always choose the 'green' supermarket delivery slot, but you may be ignoring one of the biggest ways you can make a positive environmental difference; the money that you invest and put into your bank account. Figures from Make My Money Matter, an ethical finance group backed by filmmaker Richard Curtis, show that changing just one product – your pension – reduces your carbon footprint 21 times more than if you gave up flying, went vegetarian and switched your energy provider to a greener version. 'Consumers are waking up to the power their money has,' says David Macdonald, ethical financial planner at Path Financial. 'In much the same way that people now won't buy products from companies with exploitative supply-chains or won't tolerate their friends drink-driving, attitudes with money are changing too.' There are many ways you can use your money to make the world a better place without sacrificing convenience or financial performance. Here are 10 of them, big and small. The smallest green change needs only a single click and proves that every little helps. Almost every bank offers you the choice of paper or 'paperless' bank statements, and by going paperless you are making an environmental difference. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video High street bank NatWest calculates that by moving from a paper bank statement to a digital one, you save the same amount of greenhouse gas emissions as are generated by charging your smartphone five times a month, so it's worth clicking that box. Where you do your day-to-day banking really matters, says Lori Campbell, from ethical finance site Good With Money. Check where they invest your savings, so that your salary is not helping to fund environmentally harmful practices. It can benefit your pocket as well as the planet: at the moment, Nationwide, which is rated highly by Good With Money, is offering £200 to switch through the current account switching service, and the mutual also pays out £100 Fairer Share bonuses to eligible members each year, with the latest batch hitting accounts from this month. If you have a workplace pension, chances are it is invested in whichever fund is the default for your company. But you may have a more ethical option available that you aren't aware of, and it can be easy to switch. The fund that your pension is in should be on your annual statement. You can check how it is invested and if you aren't happy with it, ask your workplace provider if it has a 'green', 'responsible' or 'ethical' option. If it does, check what it invests in and whether you're happy with performance, and if you are, you can ask to switch all or a proportion of your fund. Many of us want our savings and investments to be more sustainable but are bewildered by the many funds and products out there, that promise to be 'green' or 'environmental' (and don't always live up to expectations). Lori, at Good With Money, says this is 'greenwashing' – a marketing technique where a provider or product appears to be more eco-friendly than it is. If your pension or Isa is invested in funds, you can check whether it lives up to green credentials by looking at the companies it holds in its fund. Some that are badged as 'green' simply screen out certain types of companies – for example those involved in fossil fuels or tobacco – while others screen positively for companies that are trying to make an active difference. As well as buying funds with good outcomes, you can divest those you aren't happy with in terms of their ethical actions. David, at Path Financial, says that if you're swapping out shares in companies you are not happy with, you are making some difference – but you must also consider what to buy instead. He suggests replacing any shares for which you aren't happy with the ethics of with funds that attempt to be actively good. 'One example is the Columbia Threadneedle UK Social Bond fund,' David says. 'With this, the £1 you have just made by selling your 'bad actor' can go into a new housing unit for a vulnerable person.' This fund's bonds include money lent to affordable healthcare companies as well as social housing in various countries. 'Such investments have a direct impact and a serious social purpose,' David adds – and the fund also yields over 4%. Is your pension provider or fund manager making a difference? David recommends choosing companies that will advocate for the change you want to see. Those running funds or pensions get a vote on the activities of the companies they're investing in. And he notes that while most do not take it seriously, some do. 'I'd look at the stewardship aspect of whoever is running your pension or the fund it invests in,' he says. 'Do they use their vote to influence companies for the change you want to see? I'd recommend using a financial adviser or fund manager who expressly goes to company annual general meetings and presses for better behaviour from companies.' Alternatively, buy the shares yourself. After all, you only need to own one share to have a right to attend meetings. This could be via a self-select Isa or Sipp (self-invested personal pension). That's real shareholder action! Rather than putting your savings with a giant high-street bank, help your local area or those otherwise connected with you by depositing them with a credit union. These organisations help people to access affordable credit and can offer attractive savings rates, too. Figures from financial services consultancy Broadstone, out this month, show that they are more popular than ever, with more than two million members across the country. Richard Pinch, senior director at Broadstone, believes they are one of the finance world's 'best-kept secrets', adding: 'Another bonus of credit unions is that they offer attractive rates to savers, who also benefit from the knowledge that their deposits are helping to provide loans for other members.' Investing your money at an early stage into small projects can help you to make a difference and get a return. Ethical bank Triodos offers several investments, some of which can be put into an innovative finance Isa (Ifisa) to gain tax relief. Alternatively, David at Path recommends using One Planet Capital to invest in green start-ups that are investing in environmental challenges. The One Planet Capital schemes include a significant amount of tax relief as they are either an Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) or Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS). More Trending However, these are risky investments and you may not get your money back, so are only suitable for expert investors. As well as greening your own affair, you can speak to others about the environmental impact of financial decisions. You can find resources on this on the Make My Money Matter website and a list of companies on the Good With Money website that hold a Good Egg award for ethical finance. View More » None of this means, of course, that you can forget about those yoghurt cartons… Do you have a story to share? Get in touch by emailing MetroLifestyleTeam@ MORE: 10 of the best affordable waterproof jewellery brands you can wear non-stop MORE: Let them take the ferry – Reader says Schengen Agreement would stop the boats MORE: The Metro daily cartoon by Guy Venables Your free newsletter guide to the best London has on offer, from drinks deals to restaurant reviews.
Daily Mail
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Yesterday: Trailer, certificate and where to watch
Comedy from Richard Curtis, starring Himesh Patel as the only person who remembers The Beatles 2019
