Romantic Favorites (Notting Hill, Love Actually, Bridget Jones The Edge of Reason, About A Boy)

ABOUT A BOY, directed by Chris and Paul Weitz, stars Grant as Will Freeman, a proudly self-absorbed 38-year-old Londoner. When Will makes a guilt-free exit from a brief fling with a single mom, he decides to crash a meeting of S.P.A.T. (Single Parents, Alone Together) in pursuit of more single mothers. This scheme leads to his meeting Suzie (Victoria Smurfit) and Marcus (Nicholas Hoult), the socially awkward 12-year-old son of Suzie's flaky best friend, Fiona (Toni Collette). After a series of odd situations leads to an unlikely friendship between Will and Marcus, both of their lives start to change for the better. However, when Will falls for the lovely Rachel (Rachel Weisz) and attempts to pass Marcus off as his son, things go awry. In order to win the heart of Rachel and make amends with Marcus, Will must finally grow up.

LOVE ACTUALLY: Written and directed by Richard Curtis and produced by Duncan Kenworthy (the team behind NOTTING HILL and FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL), this zingy British comedy weaves a vivid crazy quilt of interlocking or unrelated vignettes, all dealing with the subject of love over the Christmas holidays in London. The big-name cast includes Hugh Grant as a prime minister who falls for a staff member, Liam Neeson as a widower counseling his son in the ways of romance, Laura Linney as a shy woman working up the nerve to ask out a coworker, Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman as a couple faced with infidelity, and Colin Firth as a writer who falls for his Portuguese maid. The resulting film is a laugh-packed affair, with more than a few tears to be shed along the way, and a startling amount of bawdy raunchiness.

NOTTING HILL: Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant forge memorable chemistry in this charmer about two very different people--William, an unassuming bookstore owner in London's Notting Hill section, and Anna, a Hollywood actress--who, against the odds, fall in love. After Anna wanders into William's shop while filming on location in London, the two share an instant attraction and find themselves attempting to forge a normal relationship despite Anna's megawatt star power. Screenwriter Richard Curtis (FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL) has crafted a traditional romantic comedy that is surprisingly frank in its depiction of the lives of the rich and famous and the price they pay for success.

BRIDGET JONES: THE EDGE OF REASON: It would be difficult to top the phenomenal success of BRIDGET JONES' DIARY, but the sequel certainly pulls it off. Renée Zellweger once again breathes hilarious life into the flawed heroine who sent her career soaring. This installment of Bridget's journal finds her dealing with the growing pains of a new relationship with Mark Darcy, her crush from the first film (stilted but passionate Colin Firth). Though wildly in love with him, Bridget worries that Mark and his stuffy attorney crowd may not be quite her cup of tea. When she attends an important law function as Mark's date, she manages to embarrass herself and offend his snobby colleagues. To top it off, Mark's gorgeous and willowy coworker Rebecca (Jacinda Barrett) seems to have a knack for showing up at just the wrong time. To further complicate matters, Bridget's cute but caddish former love Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant) asks her to join him on location in Thailand for a TV shoot--another chance at romance for Bridget Jones.