Notting Hill analysis

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

Notting Hill
Notting Hill is a 1999 British romantic comedy, set in Notting Hill, London. The film was released on 21^st may 1999 and was well received; it became the highest grossing British film released that year, grossing $363,889,700 at the box office. The films screenplay was by Richard Curtis  who known primarily for other romantic comedy films such as Four Weddings and a Funeral, Bridget Jones's Diary, Love Actually and The Girl in the Café, as well as the hit sitcoms Blackadder, Mr. Bean and The Vicar of Dibley. The film stars Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts who have huge fan bases.
The film begins with a montage of the main female character, Anna Scott, she’s clearly of high importance and lives a very glamorous lifestyle. Close ups are used to emphasise her desired beauty.

As she’s famous and photographed all of the time throughout the montage only artificial light is used from the flash of the cameras to highlight her face, this could imply that she perhaps doesn’t live in the real world or know what its like due to her high class luxurious lifestyle.
We are then introduced to William who is smitten over Anna whom he has never met but dreams about meeting. He lives in small London town with the streets filled with markets and stereotypical British people.  He appears to be a very ordinary character you would consider to be way out of Anna Scotts league.
William lives in small untidy cluttered house which shows that he is not perfect unlike Anna, we learn that his wife had left him who he had bought this house with which probably had a huge impact on his life. He now lives with his friend and his small business is failing.
 During the scene at home with William and his friend they talk about romance, however his friend is clearly eager to embrace his sex life through his t-shirts and appears somewhat disrespectful towards women but William is not. 

Williams’s character is portrayed as very romantic, romance is a clear element to the film from the very beginning through the use of soundtrack, it’s very slow violin type music that we associate with romance, and there is also the use of narration to begin the film which is what we often see in fairy-tale films that are focused around love.
As the film is a romantic-comedy Williams’s friend adds that humour element to the film through the way he dresses, his mannerisms and his strong accent that’s very different from Williams well-spoken English accent and is therefore humorous.
To Williams shock whilst he is at work in his book shop Anna Scott walks in, there is a focus pull, focused on William and she is blurred so we actually don’t yet know who it is yet and she is then blocked out of our view from the bookcase that acts as a barrier, this creates a sense of anticipation because we grasp that its someone of significance to the film so we are keen to know who it is.
When she is revealed we see her in dark clothing with glasses and a hat as though she’s trying to keep a low profile so no one notices the big star. At the same time a customer tries to steal a book. William threatens to call the Police then lets off the thief which shows William’s character as somewhat weak. The thief even has the courage to ask Anna for a date unlike William but is turned down by her in a humorous sarcastic tone. 
Later, William leaves the shop to buy some orange juice and bumps into Anna spilling the it  on her; this could signify that William is going to have an impact on her life, the soup was yellow and her top was white showing a clash between the two, William and Anna are a very unlikely couple due to their lifestyles.  They are then forced to spend more time together when he asks her if she wants to get cleaned up at his house.

After she has got changed and is about to leave there is a two shot of William and Anna showing the close proximity between the two and their emotions, by the way she looks at him and then kisses him we learn that she is interested in William even though he shows his clumsy ways with women because of his past.  His friend enters showing no interest by the fact that a huge star is in their house.Overall, Notting Hill manages to portray many of the codes and conventions of a typical romantic comedy. There is evidently both a romantic and humor element to the film with the character of spike being the most humorous and the unlikely meeting of the two protagonists with the stereotypical and cliche story of them falling in love. We often hear in a rom-com a voice over at the beginning which was used in this film and the sound track is often romantic everyday music.