The festive favourite film of the Christmas season is now twenty-years-old and while it remains beloved by many, the past two decades have not been kind to this seasonal rom-com. An opening monologue referencing 9/11 and the inclusion of infamous moments that, if portrayed without the saccharin sweet tone, fit better in a horror film might colour your Christmas a little darker when looking back on the film.
The movie, written and directed by Richard Curtis, follows several characters navigating their romantic problems in the lead up to Christmas. Each story is an individual tale, though at various moments characters overlap and connect in small ways. The amount of talent in the cast is staggering, sporting British household names such as Emma Thompson, Rowan Atkinson, Colin Firth, Hugh Grant and the late great Alan Rickman who all bring their best to the roles. Others include actors such as Martine McCutcheon and the criminally underutilised Laura Linney. It is these actors that allow us to overlook the flaws of the writing, but only for so long.
The biggest problem in Love Actually is, ironically, its depiction of love. The film purports that love is all around us – the opening with Bill Nighy as an aged rockstar doing a terrible cover of this is hilarious – but it often, like many Hollywood romances, confuses infatuation for love.
Several of the stories fall foul of this, but the most egregious of these is the one we all know; Mark, played by Andrew Lincoln standing in front of Keira Knightley’s Juliet and revealing how much he’s in love with her – despite never really talking to her – using written cards so as not to alert her husband, Peter, played by Chiwetel Ejiofor, who is Mark’s best friend. Had zombie-killing badass Rick Grimes not come along, Andrew Lincoln might very well have been remembered as “that creep with the signs”. Those with a tolerance for the questionable behaviour of rom-com characters may be able to stomach this, but many more await the moment when Mark cracks and abducts Juliet in the horror sequel, Obsession Actually.
It’s unfortunate that runtime is given to these plot lines at the sacrifice of others. John and Judy, played by Martin Freeman and Joanna Page, are a lovely couple whose unique story of being comfortable with physical intimacy but struggling to be emotionally intimate is one that has a lot of potential, but is not given a lot of time to develop due to how much else this over-stuffed film must get through. Other stories, such as that of Colin, played by Kris Marshall, and the American girls are so heinous that describing them would be a waste of paper and ink.
Thankfully, the film does portray some relationships perfectly. Daniel, played by Liam Neeson, and his stepson, Sam, played by Thomas Brodie-Sangster, are a perfect pairing as both come to terms with the death of their partner/mother, Joanna; Sam by focusing all of his attention on winning the heart of his crush, also called Joanna, and Daniel by being there for his boy. The dynamics between these two are wonderful and everything about their interactions with the cheeky grins and inside jokes between father and son are a joy to watch. These two make the movie and it was the right choice to focus the overall climax on their story.
To wrap up, Love Actually is easy to curl up with and be comforted by, but like many of this film’s relationships, we are all deserving of a love that is worth a little more.
3/5
Image Credit: TMDB
