Script To Screen: “Notting Hill”
A scene from the 1999 movie Notting Hill, written by Richard Curtis.
A scene from the 1999 movie Notting Hill, written by Richard Curtis.
Setup: Anna joins William and a group of friends for dinner who agree to give the last brownie to the person who is the “saddest act”.
BELLA
C'est la vie... We're lucky in lots
of ways, but... Surely it's worth a
brownie.William reaches for her hand. Max breaks the sombre mood. MAX
Well, I don't know. Look at
William. Very unsuccessful
professionally. Divorced. Used to
be handsome, now kind of squidgy
around the edges -- and absolutely
certain never to hear from Anna again
after she's heard that his nickname
at school was Floppy.They all laugh. Anna smiles across at William. WILLIAM
So I get the brownie? MAX
I think you do, yes. ANNA
Wait a minute. What about me? MAX
I'm sorry? You think you deserve the
brownie? ANNA
Well... a shot at it. WILLIAM
You'll have to prove it. This is a
great brownie and I'm going to fight
for it. State your claim. ANNA
Well, I've been on a diet since I was
nineteen, which means basically I've
been hungry for a decade. I've had a
sequence of not nice boyfriends -- one
of whom hit me: and every time my heart
gets broken it gets splashed across
the newspapers as entertainment.
Meantime, it cost millions to get me
looking like this... HONEY
Really? ANNA
Really -- and one day, not long from
now...While she says this, quiet settles around the table. The thing
is -- she sort of means it and is opening up to them. ANNA
... my looks will go, they'll find out
I can't act and I'll become a sad
middle-aged woman who looks a bit like
someone who was famous for a while.Silence... they all look at her... then. MAX
Nah!!! Nice try, gorgeous -- but you
don't fool anyone.The mood is instantly broken. They all laugh. WILLIAM
Pathetic effort to hog the brownie.
Here is the movie version of the scene:
One of the single best things you can do to learn the craft of screenwriting is to read the script while watching the movie. After all a screenplay is a blueprint to make a movie and it’s that magic of what happens between printed page and final print that can inform how you approach writing scenes. That is the purpose of Script to Screen, a weekly series on GITS where we analyze a memorable movie scene and the script pages that inspired it.
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