the cliches of a romance film

Notting HIll



Notting hill like most other romcoms infuses itself with the clichés we all love but adds slight differences to keep it fresh, for instance our unlucky in love character who is normally portrayed as “Bridget Jones” is now the attractive William Thacker (Huge Grant) but with all the floors of Jones for instance; he owns a unsuccessful book shop, has been in a bad relationship in the case his wife left him for a man who looked like Harrison Ford and is clumsy.

In the case of Notting hill the faithful yet hopeless sidekick who gets in the way of him and  Anna Scott(Julia Roberts) is the stupid but well-meaning  Spike (Rhys Ifans) a lodger in Williams house Spike is very much a cliché in the film for instance he is also unlucky in love so there is an element of them being in the same boat together he is also in every way the stranger one of the two “ there’s something wrong with this yogurt” “is mayonnaise” this helps the audience connect with the film as everyone at some stage has had that type of hapless but lovable friend. 

In the film there is also a lot of typical will they won’t they moments between William and Anna this keeps the audience at the edge of their seat as seen in almost every romcom film like pretty woman, four wedding and a funeral, sweet home Alabama and the proposal. The will they won`t they moment has now become a must have cliché in any romcom as it helps bulk out the film and make the moment when they do kiss even better, and well what is the point in watching a film where the guy gets the girl on the first date.

The tag line for this film “Can the most famous film star in the world fall for just an ordinary guy?” plays on the opposites attract cliché another example of this being used is pretty woman where a millionaire business man  falls in love with a penniless hooker. This cliché works well in Notting hill as it present the love struck couple with a hurdle on lovers lane, in this case it is the press finding out about the two of them and Anna assuming that Will tipped them off this is also a case of showing Dramatic irony; we no will dint do it but she doesn’t.