Reviews

Not the best film ever to come out of Spain, but makes some pertinent points about some contemporary issues, which must surely be (almost) as timely in the US as for us in "federal" Europe at the moment. Not least of them, how much are our perceptions of love, loyalty and honour shaped by our perceptions of our relative socio-economic and geographical circumstances?

Personally, I agree with the reviewers who felt the Bulgarian interlude is very important for assisting characterisation - particularly for helping explain the motivations of Kyril and Kalina. I can understand some bristling at what they see as offensive clichés about disenfranchised eastern Europeans, but hey, it's the work of one director, not some Party committee. However, he does seem to tread the line between thriller, comedy and Almodovar-style melodrama with the unease of someone who's a bit rusty (and the clunkingly obvious "tribute" scene to Almodovar's "Law of Desire" when Kyril and Daniel are returning home from a drunken night out as Madrid's municipal cleaners hose down the street could only ever make you pine for that earlier, greater work).

Having said that, I think it bears repeat viewing. But, as for the "gratuitous nudity" - uptight Americans get over yourselves, please. There is hardly any.

Having been underwhelmed by Four Weddings and nauseated by Love, Actually, what was I doing submitting myself to around two hours of Notting Hell? You might well ask.

Richard Curtis is a New Zealand-born writer who seems to have a love affair with the duller end of the British bourgeoisie. Except that they have the "endearingly eccentric" habit of swearing in linguistic constructions unknown to anyone in this country (I was born and bred in London, and I don't recognise any of these people).

It's a bit squirm-making to think people outside the UK might imagine this is what we're like and, goodness knows, Curtis's feeble-minded films are commercially successful enough domestically, so I can only take comfort from the thought that most intelligent moviegoers will have noticed that all of his subsidiary characters are essentially the same, whatever the film, and serve only as baffle-boards for the main characters' lame one-liners, while they also oil the lurching from each dull conflict to the next insipid resolution.

Anyway, you can read the other reviews to get an idea of the plot — and there's a f**cking awesome twist (only kidding). I just hope Julia Roberts got a good cut of the (depressingly inevitable) profits — she acts very well in a film that's otherwise rather like an extended, self-satisfied British sit-com.

But I will stop to waste a little more bile on the notorious "brownie" scene, in which assorted dullard characters with not one iota of self-awareness between them compete as to who is the more hard-done-by for a morsel of cake, albeit in a ostensibly comedic way — let's just say you don't want to be eating for this. Unless, possibly, the hour or so that's gone before has driven you to a chosen snack of 100 temazepam.