Honey and Spike

Wear a white T-shirt in a trendy London community, look pretty gorgeous, a sprinkle of fame might help, quicken your pace as you approach the corner and with any luck you’ll bump into a strangely cute guy who will spill orange juice down your pristine top and boom, the stars have aligned, atoms have collided and there he is, your soon to be soul mate. This very familiar scene from Notting Hill created a Mexican wave of female sighs across the nation and possibly across much of the western world; the tried and tested formula, boy pisses off girl, girl notices boy, boy has already noticed girl, boy and girl have a chemical reaction, boy and girl have a misunderstanding and part ways, boy and girl are brought together at the end, usually by outside forces. “I’m just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her”, this, and many other similar lines have one main thread; I am not enough.

Many have been under the hypnotic allusion that the representation of the perfect relationship in Notting Hill was that of Anna and William. However, if we’d have been able to eavesdrop on the subsequent years what might we have seen? Prior to being with William, Anna demonstrated a need to be loved in a romantic partnership; gave her soul to others, both in her work and in her relationships and demonstrated a marked lack of self esteem. William appeared to be slightly distant, possibly detached, prior to meeting Anna and then lost this sense of independence after striking up that life-changing connection.

Snoop on their future lives together and you might see them in blissful happiness; however the reality may be starkly different. You could see an Anna who struggles to be without William, or, if she is without him, needs an army of friends around her as a distraction. You could see a William, who is feeling claustrophobic and pressure from Anna’s constant need for validation from him, wanting to know where he is, when he is going to be home, needing to be consumed by his constant, positive attention. You now have a William whose reaction could be to take flight. You have two individuals, who are unable to be two individuals.

However, there was an Easter egg of an almost perfect connection neatly concealed within the celluloid folds of Notting Hill and many of us missed it. There were two people who, by the end of the film, knew that they, as individuals, were enough. One had her journey through single life, voyaged through a failed relationship but was solo through most of the latter half of the film and appeared to be at ease in her quirky self at this point; the other was very secure in himself from beginning to end. He was what you see is what you get authenticity from head to toe, via dirty white underpants. He was carrying no extra ballast or assumptions that his past would be his future; he had always been complete. And then these two souls discovered the other, both already enough in their individual selves but equally understanding that one could enhance the other. This wasn’t glamour, stunning beauty, chiselled jaw, Loreal hair; this was real, pure, flawed, but oh so ready. So Spike met Honey and Honey met Spike and the rest, we can say, was just groovy.