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Notting Hill (1999)
The romantic movie everyone should watch at least once in life. Let’s admit it; can you avoid watching it every time it’s on TV?
The story is about a clumsy bookseller that meets a Hollywood movie star. Will they fall in love or are their lives too different to be spent together?
Starring Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts, the film is written by Richard Curtis, the screenwriter of other milestones of British romantic comedies like Bridget Jones’s Diary, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Love Actually and About Time.
The London of Notting Hill is an elegant capital, crowded but benevolent.
Trivia: the house with the iconic blue door was once owned by Richard Curtis.
Shakespeare in Love (1998)
The one William Shakespeare falls in love and finds the inspiration to write one of his most famous plays.
From the play writer Tom Stoppard, the film was nominated for 13 Oscars and won 7 statuettes (Best Picture, Best Actress to Gwyneth Paltrow, Best Supporting Actress to Judi Dench, Best Art Director, Best Costume Design, Best Original Music or Comedy Score, Best Original Screenplay).
Set in Elizabethan London, the film gives a general idea of the past of the city, in the period where London acquired the fame as a city of theatre.
Trivia: Judi Dench won the Oscar for playing Queen Elizabeth for a total screen time of 8 minutes.
Run Fatboy Run (2007)
Not really a romantic movie, but a comedy that talks about love. Dennis jilts at the altar his pregnant fiancée Libby. 5 years later Libby starts to date the ambitious and fascinating Whit. Could Dennis win again the heart of Libby by running a Marathon?
Dennis is the great Simon Pegg (better known for The Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy and Star Trek).
Set in a modern multi-ethnic London, you will have no trouble in recognising the city.
Trivia: Have you spotted Ross from the series “Friends” during the marathon? Don’t be surprised, he is the director of the film!
An Education (2009)
Jenny has a bright future at Oxford University in front of her. She is a brilliant student, but dreams of a bohemian and romantic life. One day she meets David, a charming man twice her age. David initiates Jenny to adulthood and the life she has always dreamt of.
The screenplay is written by Nick Hornby.
Discover the Swinging London alongside Jenny, with its vivacious clubs and concerts.
Trivia: The part of Danny, one of David’s friends, should have been played by Orlando Bloom, but the actor dropped out few days before the beginning of the filming.
My Beautiful Laundrette (1985)
Omar is a young ambitious British Pakistani, who is appointed by his uncle as manager of a run-down laundrette in Battersea. One day he gets verbally attacked by a gang of right-wing punks, among which he recognise his old school mate Johnny. Omar decides to offer Johnny a better future and hire him as a caretaker of his laundrette.
A comedy-drama that explores homosexuality and racism in a suburban area of London during the Thatcher era.
Trivia: The film opened in the same day of “A room with a view”, also starring Daniel Day-Lewis. The actor played two very different characters in the two films: a gay street punk in the first and an Edwardian upper-class posh in the second.
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