Notting Hill

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

The overall result is a romantic comedy that indulges fantasies, calms insecurities (can an ordinary bloke stack up?), and breaks and mends hearts with surgical precision.

San Francisco Chronicle Bob Graham

It comes as a bonus that this romantic comedy is one of the rare pictures of its type that actually is about something -- the double-edged sword of celebrity.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

It's pure fluff, but as irresistible as cotton candy.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

A pure, sweet romance that moves along with bouncy comedy and a touch of grown-up realism and rue.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Blithe and exhilarating romantic comedy.

Film.com Norman Green

It's irresistible.

USA Today Susan Wloszczyna

Its deadpan wit, ingenious fairy-tale premise and superbly accomplished cast will leave you feeling positively oxygenated.

Chicago Tribune Marc Caro

It's funny, sympathetic, mostly smart, and it boasts a likable cast of characters led by two performers who have star power and know how to use it.

Mr. Showbiz Eleonore Snow

A smart, sometimes pissingly funny romantic comedy that is also oddly unmoving and predictable in spots.

Slate David Edelstein

A brainy weave of satire and fantasy.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

So the film has this weird postmodernist taint: It has a self-aware script that cleverly plays off the reality of its own cast and their famous real-life contretemps. It's smart and knowing.

Variety Derek Elley

Has buckets to spare of that rarest screen commodity — genuine, engaging charm.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

In the end, the movie works because Grant and Roberts are disarming geniuses at playing themselves -- and then some.

San Francisco Examiner Wesley Morris

The deft, hilarious Notting Hill finds Grant's dour-droll-deprecating affliction at its most dead-on.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

The movie is bright, the dialogue has wit and intelligence, and Roberts and Grant are very easy to like. By the end, as much as we're aware of the ancient story machinery groaning away below deck, we're smiling.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

There's some very funny dialogue, but the picture falls apart when it tries to think real thoughts about celebrity, publicity, and the media.

New York Post Rod Dreher

The frothy, feel-good Notting Hill is about as enchanting as movies get these days.

Newsweek Jeff Giles

Adorable, if uneven, romantic comedy.

Film.com Robert Horton

A piece of fluff that can be enjoyed without guilt.

TNT RoughCut Jennifer Nowitzky

If you're looking for Julia Roberts (circa "Pretty Woman") playing, well, herself, and Hugh Grant (circa "Four Weddings and A Funeral") playing, well, himself, then you're in luck.

The New York Times Elvis Mitchell

The movie has lots of glossy charm even if Ms. Roberts and Grant seem less like lovers than members of a support group for the desperately attractive.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

A smartly cast and consistently amusing romantic comedy.

Chicago Reader Lisa Alspector

At once a light comedy and a reasonably serious meditation on the perils of fame.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Roberts fans will, of course, be delighted to see her in a role that plays to all her strengths -- fresh-faced looks, charming gangliness, air of infinite approachability -- and neatly sidesteps her glaring inability to act by having her more or less play herself.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

It may boil down to little more than a minor variation on Four Weddings' formula, but it's an interesting and entertaining one.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Notting Hill does an adequate job, but this isn't one of those landmark romantic comedies that dozens of subsequent movies will seek to emulate.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

In the slow coast down Notting Hill, we approach the blessed land of Nodding Off.

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

The result is two films: a big, dreary star vehicle that sags whenever its leads spend quality time together, and a mettlesome British caper whose nutsosecondary characters walk away with the movie.

Austin Chronicle Hollis Chacona

Funny, bright, sly, and unabashedly romantic, Notting Hill combines fluffy, fairy-tale fantasy with big laughs, snappy dialogue, and small moments of pain and unease to create a surprisingly satisfying two hours.

Film.com Ernest Hardy

It has to be noted that the use of music in this film is the worse in recent memory: maudlin, syrupy, and overwrought.

Village Voice Dennis Lim

It is not, the filmmakers stress, a sequel to "Four Weddings and a Funeral" (which writer Richard Curtis was also responsible for), but it fits the latter-day Hollywood definition of the term -- same movie, only worse.

Dallas Observer Scott Kelton Jones

Notting Hill offers another example of moviemakers consoling themselves about how tough it is to be famous while congratulating themselves on how down-to-earth they really are.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

It's an English movie doing its best to masquerade as the shallowest kind of Hollywood romantic comedy, as if somewhere along the way someone had made a calculated supposition that would be the only kind of comedy American audiences would buy.