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Alessandro86 (2)
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Everyone who hated Anna came to this thread! I think she's nice.
Her character is ambiguous and one really needs to consider the whole film to judge it. Yes you may say that she's taking advantage of the poor London boy for a distraction, you can say she's uninteresting and has no personality because she doesn't talk very much and you can say she's been rude.
But of course the film is constructed in such a way to exaggerate the distance and the obstacles between the characters, so it continuously feels like it's never gonna work, until it works.
If you reconsider Anna's character more kindly, you can see that she really cares for Will throughout. I interpret the fact she doesn't talk much as because she's introverted; note how she enjoys just sitting or walking silently next to Will. She's not cold at all, just not over-talkative. And she's sensitive: she picks readily on art's meaning (Chagall) and Will's humour (she reacts to the apricots with honey talk, the Horse&Hound joke etc). It makes her stand apart from the extroverted Hollywood crowd, taking itself so seriously.
And I would myself not mention if I had a such a boyfriend - can't blame her!
She gets mad at Will once, yes, but how many people under a strong emotion become suddenly agressive? It just shows how much the paparazzi upset her, and it was a one-off episode in contrast with her self-controlled character.
If we didn't see the ending, we could wonder forever whether she just had a play with a toy-boy and then threw him away, or if she meant what she said. But the film shows that she actually married Will and in the last scene she looked very happy to start a family with him. So in retrospect, you cannot say that she was not honest, as she decided to marry him after meeting just three times!
I'm sure the movie is designed to keep the suspense on her real feelings all the way until the famous scene ("I'm just a girl in front of a boy...") where the cards are shown down, and hearts melt!
I just watched the movie again and I feel totally the same.
I realise the whole first kiss scene is constructed on purpose to make us believe that things are going poorly for Hugh Grant until when she suddenly kisses him. When she says no ten times standing next to the fridge, the filmmaker wants us to believe that she can't wait to get out of the house. So yeah, cinematically it's a very effective plot twist, but it lets us in the dark about what's really going on in her mind.
And he's so passive! Not only she initiates the kiss, but she always takes the initiative all along the movie. I think the only point when he takes the initiative is when he goes to Hampstead Heath. But before that, she makes advances at least 6 times. I mean, did it ever happen in real life that a girl needs to insist and ask a guy twice for him to come upstairs and sleep with her?! (when they are at the Ritz at night, and again in Will's house at night).
So in the end it's a refreshing change in gender stereotypes, but like the OP I wonder how often this happens in real life. Of course it was meant to be a one-chance-in-a-million story anyway.
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