5. Anna Scott - Julia Roberts (Notting Hill)
Why They Derailed The Movie: Hard To Feel Happy For Such A Terrible Person Another character fresh from the Richard Curtis' filmmaking canon who I simply couldn't leave off of this list, given that she's just about the most intolerable "female romantic lead" in the history of Richard Curtis movies - and that's including Andie McDowell's turn in
Four Weddings In A Funeral. Anna Scott earns her place, though, not because she's like a piece of cardboard imbued with the ability to deliver lines of dialogue, but because she's such a badly written love interest - and Curtis tries to manipulate us into thinking she's nice. So here we have a character who I'm pretty sure audiences were supposed to fall in love with - movie star Anna Scott, who meets ordinary guy William Thacker (Hugh Grant again) and turns his life upside down. For a while, we think this gal is all right, and then she reveals herself to be such a detestable person (she uses him, betrays him, and then makes him feel bad about it) that by the time the movie is over, we're left with a sour taste in our mouths. It's hard to feel happy about their romance, and the otherwise endearing rom-com feels... well,
wrong.