The Englishman Who Went Up `Notting Hill' And Came Down With Julia Roberts -- Endearing Romance Fulfills Star-Meets-Average-Joe Fantasy

Movie review XXX "Notting Hill," with Julia Roberts, Hugh Grant, Emma Chambers, Hugh Bonneville. Directed by Roger Michell, from a script by Richard Curtis. 123 minutes. Several theaters. "PG-13" - Parental guidance advised because of adult situations and profanity.

Every moviegoer harbors a secret fantasy that goes something like this: Somehow, you meet your favorite movie star. You hit it off immediately. The star is implausibly, yet forcefully drawn to your most unassuming aspects: your steady personality, your stability and your normal, humdrum pace of life. As popular fantasies go, it's probably right behind winning the lottery and losing 15 pounds before summer.

"Notting Hill," an unpretentious, endearing romantic comedy, is that fantasy realized. It doesn't hurt that in the lead roles it has two very charming stars, Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts, with Grant assuming the role of the regular guy on the street.

Grant plays, as he nearly always does, a hapless shmoe, unlucky in love. This time he's William Thacker, the owner of a travel-book shop, and his personal life is a disaster. Roberts plays Anna Scott, a movie superstar dogged by her own fame, who wanders into Thacker's shop. A later, untenable and unbelievable exchange leads Anna to invite William to her hotel.

He arrives during a press junket (the best bit of comedy in the film) and the two decide to go on a date. As they become closer, the problems of dating a superstar (yes, apparently there are some) begin to ruin the fantasy. Anna's got a the temper of a diva scorched by the public's love/hate relationship with her, as well as a swarm of paparazzi snapping at her heels. Thacker, who's already got an inferiority complex, quickly feels out of his league.

With nowhere near the wit or clarity of the very underrated "Four Weddings and a Funeral" (both were written by Richard Curtis), "Notting Hill" succeeds at being just clever and cozily fuzzy. Still, Roberts' Anna Scott seems much more like a human being than Andie MacDowell's frequent-flier strumpet in "Four Weddings," although Grant doesn't even try to distinguish Thacker from his role in "Weddings."

Once again, writer Curtis populates his lead character's life with oddball friends. But the friends aren't nearly as crucial or as defined in "Notting," which causes the film to focus on Anna and William. Particularly Anna.

Perhaps no other film she's appeared in has allowed the audience to snuggle down like a raisin in the cinnamon rollness of Julia Roberts. Her flirtation with the camera becomes an unabashed affair, and, by extension, we feel the fanning of the batting eyelids. Roberts is the perfect celebrity to play a superstar who has fallen for a regular Joe (hey, she married Lyle Lovett, didn't she?) and conveys some odd, fawnlike skittishness and vulnerability to boot. She's very, very good at it.

Perhaps, most interestingly, this lonely-hearts-club movie doesn't just end with a Disney-like kiss and fade to black. It shows how things progress in the future, betraying itself as a film not just about romance, but about love, maybe even commitment. It's a love fantasy - Julia Roberts-exposed-midriff-in-the-sack-every- night-kind of love, but love nonetheless. And that's kind of a nice fantasy.