Rom-Com - Nottinghill

Analyse how the film’s opening establishes genre conventions and reaches target audiences through technical codes, narrative and characterisation

Notting Hill was released in 1999 and is a British Rom-Com. The film is set in Notting Hill, London and was released on 21^st May 1999. The film was written by Richard Curtis who has written several Rom-Coms including Four Weddings and a Funeral so the audience is aware before they even watch the film that it was written by a successful well known comedic writer. It was directed by Roger Michell and produced by Duncan Kenworthy. It was well received amongst critics at the time and became the highest grossing British film released that year. It had a budget of $43 million and made $363,889,700 at the box office.

The main male character William Thacker, who is known as will throughout the film as Will is the typical British male in the film. He is a clumsy, hopeless romantic that doesn’t know what to do with himself and lacks confidence. We learn through his narration whilst he is walking down the busy market street of Notting Hill whilst the camera tracks alongside him that he lives with a lodger called Spike as his wife left him for a celebrity lookalike. This highlights the stereotypical British that lack in confidence. The audience may expect the female to be seen as more vulnerable as male characters aren’t typically the emotionally weaker characters in a film. However, Richard Curtis challenged this by switching this around and making the man the more vulnerable one. It also shows how many British people lack in the confidence and usually put themselves down.

The main female character is a lot bolder as she is a Hollywood actress known as Anna Scott who is introduced at the very beginning of the film when there is a mixture of images and videos that super impose across one another which highlights how important she will be throughout the film. A song called ‘She’ is sung throughout this sequence which is a slow song that is appears to be sung by a man sets the scene by showing how the film is a romantic and emotional. By using the word ‘She’ repeatedly it shows how he feels about her. Throughout the songs there is a range of shots within these videos ranging from close ups of the face to extreme long shots of her. This sequence shows how high up she is in comparison to other characters in the film reinforcing the audience’s perceptions that any normal person won’t be able to meet her, let alone have a relationship with her. to The idea of her being the more powerful and being the one that usually leaves of the two main characters challenges what audiences think as they would expect her to be more vulnerable and the one that would be hurt by the male character. Furthermore the titles at the beginning of the film are with curved font that reinforcing the idea that it’s a Rom-Com. Some letters are also in soft pastel colours that also highlight this idea.

The two characters first meet when Anna enters Wills Travel Bookstore wearing hat and sunglasses this shows how she is of a higher status and is trying to conceal her identity by wearing the sunglasses. Will is looking down at a book; however you can tell he is not focussed and aware of the unusual presence inside his book store after he is alerted by a bell signalling the arrival of a customer. It is clearly visible how he doubts what he is seeing as he doesn’t appear to look back down in the same direction; his facial expressions at this point also show this. At this point she isn’t in focus. It briefly cuts to a medium shot of Will but this then zooms in on him. This moment furthermore shows his confusion and disbelief at what is happening to him as he didn’t believe this was going to happen to him. Until they begin talking the scene is accompanied by dream like soundtrack which highlights how this moment is much like a dream to him. This challenges what the audience’s perception that normal people will never meet those known as celebrities.

As this film is a Rom-Com it is expected to have that romantic but also a feel good factor with the comedic side of it. I think Notting Hill achieves this well with its use of different camera angles and soundtrack. The camera angles especially close ups on the face help to convey the emotions on the face of the character with a non-diegetic soundtrack usually accompanying this which is used to reinforce the emotions of the scene as well as make the audience feel as though they are there experiencing the scene.