Verdict: Weak storyline with some pleasant comic highpoints.

Details: Starring Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant. Directed by Roger Michell. Rated PG-13 for sexual content and brief strong language. 2 hours 3 minutes.

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Review: ``Notting Hill'' asks the question, ``Can the most famous film star in the world fall for the man on the street?''

The answer is supposed to be yes. Try as they may, though, Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant can't convince us that their characters fall hopelessly in love with each other. Otherwise, ``Notting Hill'' is a harmless, well-intentioned romantic comedy with several solid laughs.

Roberts plays Anna Scott, the aforementioned most famous film star in the world. Really, Roberts plays herself. In the opening sequence we see her floating through a sea of flashbulbs, walking along a red carpet to a premiere dressed in a designer gown, flashing that trademark smile.

While in London promoting her latest sci-fi blockbuster (you have to suspend much disbelief), she wanders through the city's bustling, eclectic Notting Hill section and into a travel bookstore. (Why she's there is never really clear. Maybe she recognizes from outside the store how slow business is and thinks it'll be a sanctuary from the paparazzi.) For no apparent reason, she buys a book about Turkey.

William Thacker (Grant), who owns the bookstore, is ``the man on the street.'' He's an ordinary, good-looking guy with a dry sense of humor whose wife recently divorced him. That's about all we learn of him, but we need not know more. William is the same bumbling but sweet Englishman Grant plays in pretty much everything.

Despite Anna's enormous fame, William doesn't fawn over her. They have a witty exchange, she buys the Turkey book and leaves. Later that day, they bump into one another — literally — on a street corner and he spills orange juice all over her white T-shirt. This gives them an excuse to go back to his apartment, where nothing happens, but she changes clothes and they get to have alleged sexual tension.

Out of nowhere she kisses him, which comes as a complete shock because up to this point there have been no sparks whatsoever. Even their kiss is spark-free, but we are expected to believe there's some kind of magical attraction.

From here, the two spend a few days meeting his friends, avoiding photographers and supposedly falling in love.

The funniest parts come when their vastly different worlds collide, and the talented supporting cast brings those scenes to life.

William takes Anna to an intimate dinner party for his goofy sister, Honey (Emma Chambers), who proclaims that Anna is her new best friend.

When Anna invites William to her suite at The Ritz, he is mistaken for a reporter for Horse and Hound magazine and fumbles his way through a press junket.

The biggest scene-stealer of all is William's obnoxious yet lovable Welsh roommate, Spike, played by Rhys Ifans. Spike is skinny, smelly and unshaven. He chain-smokes and eats Cocoa Puffs while dressed in a wet suit because all his clothes are dirty. Anna panics when the paparazzi find her one morning at William's apartment, but Spike works the cameras in his underwear, flexing like a bodybuilder.

Toward the end, the film grows tedious, and Anna appears less desirable as she whines about the price of fame. Just as it's unclear why they got together, it's hard to understand why William stays loyal to Anna through her moody snits.

``Notting Hill'' comes from the people who made ``Four Weddings and a Funeral,'' so there's a lot of well-written British humor and, of course, a happy ending.

And even though their love scenes lack truth or fire, Grant and Roberts individually are a joy to watch.

— Christy Lemire, Associated Press

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