Love Actually

Of one thing we can be sure: I am an Anglophile. Some of my favorite movies and television are of British origin. So it is of no surprise that one of the Christmas movies I watch regularly is of British origin: Love Actually.

Before I get into the movie itself I must explain the following: Love Actually came out in 2003 and I saw it in theaters with my first boyfriend. We were within the first few weeks of our relationship and being in the first blush of new love (or what I thought was love but turns out, in hindsight, it was never really more than a deep like) I was completely enthralled with this movie. I was also 17 and it was 2003 and while that doesn’t seem like a long time ago, it really was in many ways that are pretty obvious to the modern viewer. That being said, this movie does have a special place in my heart even though it hasn’t worn well over time.

Love Actually has roughly nine storylines (you could argue there are one or two more, but I count nine) all of which are interconnected. Each of the characters are in one way or another connected to this larger net made up of all of the characters. To explain the whole thing would be an epic undertaking, so I will sum up: and here I say, beware sailors, for here be spoilers.

Peter and Juliet and Mark

Towards the beginning of the movie, we see Peter (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and Juliet’s (Keira Knightley) wedding. (Lots of the other characters yet to be named are seen attending the wedding.) The best man is Mark (Andrew Lincoln). He is seen filming the whole event and it is later revealed that he was really just zooming in on Juliet the whole time because he’s secretly in love with her. He appears at her doorway one evening (Christmas Eve, I think) and does this whole silent profession of love bit with the words written on big poster board so that Peter doesn’t overhear. A bit of a scummy move, although when I first saw the movie I thought that scene was very cute. Nothing comes of it, of course. Juliet kisses Mark in the street, but then returns home to her husband.

Colin, Tony, and the American girls

Colin (Kris Marshall) and Tony (Abdul Salis) are friends. Colin is kind of an odd jobs guy, picking up work as he can at various events and locations throughout the movie. He is seen struggling to flirt with and make connections with any women, so he decides that he is going to America where he is sure he will find a girlfriend immediately. Tony tries to convince Colin that he’s making a mistake, but Colin ignores his friend and takes his cute, British accent across the pond to charm the ladies of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Turns out Colin is right. He not only immediately finds a girlfriend, he finds four women who all want to have sex with him as a sort of group activity, because apparently that is what American girls do? News to me. Amazingly, even though they are in Wisconsin, some of these women have southern accents. That’s pretty much all that happens with Colin.

David and Natalie

David (Hugh Grant) is the newly elected prime minister and Natalie (Martine McCutcheon) is the potty-mouthed catering manager on his household staff. They navigate an obvious attraction for awhile before the visiting President of the United States makes a pass at Natalie and David walks in on them. David then has Natalie reassigned so that he doesn’t have to see her every day. But on Christmas Eve David receives a Christmas card from Natalie that makes him realize he needs to see her and he goes to find her at home. They get together, of course. Throughout this story, Hugh Grant gives us some of the best moments of the movie including a scene where he dances through the whole of his residence before being walked in on by a member of staff. The most problematic thing here is that Natalie is constantly referred to as chubby (she is NOT) and her chubbiness is presented as a problem. The saving grace in this case is that the first time someone calls Natalie chubby in front of David he says (in a devastatingly adorable Hugh Grant-ish way), “Ooooo, would we call her chubby?”

Jack and Judy

Jack (Martin Freeman) and Judy (Joanna Page) are stand-ins for actors on a movie set. (Tony is also there, he has some kind of job in the movie business.) These two mild-mannered and relatively reserved people find themselves completely nude and simulating sex so that the cameras can set up and lighting can figure out “when they’re going to see the nipples”. Throughout all of this gratuitous nudity, Jack and Judy have a truly nice conversation and build a connection which leads to a date later on. On said date, Jack tries to kiss Judy but chickens out, so she kisses him instead. Its a very cute storyline, but I have one major problem with it: just because the camera sees Judy’s nipples at a given angle doesn’t mean that the real actress’s nipples will be seen at the same angle. Because not all women’s breasts look the same. Like, not even close to the same. Stop spreading this fake news that every boob has to look a certain way. Untrue, for the record.

Daniel, Sam, and the Joannas

Daniel (Liam Neeson) has just lost his wife, Joanna, and is now a full time stepdad to Sam (Thomas Brodie-Sangster). Concerned about how Sam is handling his grief, Daniel has a conversation with Sam and finds out that the real problem is that Sam is in love with a girl at school, also called Joanna. Their story rapidly becomes one of how to get young Joanna to notice Sam, leading Sam to start learning to play the drums so that he can perform in the Christmas show at school which Joanna is also in. Long story short the plan doesn’t work, so encouraged by Daniel, Sam chases Joanna through the airport to tell her how he feels before she flies home to America. The problem with this one is that Sam and Joanna are so young, and as much as Daniel tries to speak reason into the situation, he ultimately encourages Sam to pursue this infatuation, calling it love. In my opinion, Sam and Joanna are not yet mature enough to understand romantic love. Also, they’re literal children. Who among us wants to watch a romantic comedy about children? That, my friends, would be a red flag.

Karen and Harry and Mia

Karen (Emma Thompson) and Harry (Alan Rickman) are married with two children. Harry is the boss at an office where Mia (Heike Makatsch) has just started working. Karen (friend of Daniel, sister of David) is a stay at home mother. While Karen is devoting her time to all of the work to make Christmas happen for their family, Mia is at the office blatantly coming onto Harry. Eventually, he gives in and starts flirting back. We see him buy Mia a necklace, which Karen finds and mistakenly assumes is for her. When she doesn’t receive the necklace, she realizes it has gone to another woman and confronts Harry who is immediately apologetic. The problems here are little nit-picky ones because the simple fact is that situations like this happen in real life. It is hard to pick apart something we know to be true, even though we may not like it. So the problems include the fact that a CD and a box with a necklace in it feel nothing alike so Karen would have known the necklace was missing sooner, and the entirely pointless scene where literally all that happens is Mia takes off her dress, stands in her underwear, and then walks out of frame. The other annoying thing is that the CD that Karen mistakes for the necklace is actually a really thoughtful gift! This is an improvement on Harry’s previous gift giving behavior and it is totally shot to hell because he’s also being a total asshole while he’s being thoughtful. Just a very small sidebar question: HOW DO PEOPLE DO THIS? How can one split their emotions like this and treat their partners this way? Yo no comprendo.

Sarah, her brother, and Karl

Sarah (Laura Linney) works in Harry’s office and has had a crush on Karl (Rodrigo Santoro) since day one on the job. She is also caring for her brother who is in a mental hospital. He calls her cell phone constantly and she always answers. Even when she and Karl finally hook up at the office Christmas party and go back to her apartment, she answers the phone when it rings. She briefly tries to explain to Karl, but her brother calls again and she promises to go see him immediately, effectively ending her makeout sesh with Karl. Despite the fact that an ever so slightly deeper conversation could probably have addressed the problem, Karl and Sarah never work it out or even really talk about what happened between them. It’s a solid bummer, this one.

Billy Mack and Joe/Chubbs

Billy Mack (Bill Nighy) is an aging rockstar who has recorded a cover of one of his own songs making it into a Christmas song. Over the course of the weeks leading up to Christmas, Billy and his manager, Joe (Gregor Fisher) campaign for this new cover to be the number one Christmas song on the charts. They succeed and on Christmas Eve when it is announced that he has won, he gets invited to a big party by Elton John. Billy goes to the party and Joe, who Billy calls Chubbs, goes home alone. A little while later, “Chubbs” is surprised to see Billy show up at his home saying that he wants to spend Christmas with the people he loves, which turns out to be his manager (loves in a platonic way).

Jamie and Aurelia

While he is away attending Peter and Juliet’s wedding, it turns out that Jamie’s (Colin Firth) brother is sleeping with Jamie’s girlfriend. After the ensuing breakup, Jamie retreats to the continent to a cabin where he works on his writing. He is introduced to Aurelia (Lucia Moniz), a Portuguese woman who is hired to clean his house. They do not speak the same language, but the subtitles in these scenes show us that even though they cannot understand each other, they are in sync. When Jamie drops Aurelia off at home for the last time, she kisses him goodbye. He returns to England where he begins learning Portuguese. At the end of the film, he flies to her home where he asks her father if he can marry his daughter. In a series of hilarious jokes (sarcasm), Aurelia’s father thinks Jamie is talking about his other daughter who is overweight. But that is obviously not the case, because who would want a fat woman? Jamie corrects the misunderstanding and they walk together through the streets to the restaurant where Aurelia is working. Jamie proposes in Portuguese; Aurelia accepts in English which she learned “just in cases”. It is very sweet despite the fact that their bond cannot be that deep since the proposal is the first time they really speak each other’s language. But, you know, it is supposed to be romantic.

I’ve already listed a number of the problems with this movie, but here are the really big, glaring ones:

1) there are no LGBTQ relationships represented.

2) there are almost not people of color, and those that are present are secondary characters at best.

3) being fat is obviously the absolute worst thing that could happen to a person, according to this movie. There are multiple fat jokes and multiple characters demeaned over their weight/appearance (Natalie, Aurelia’s sister, Chubbs).

4) the biggest problem: this movie is called Love Actually and is therefore obviously about love. But for the most part it is only about romantic love. There is parent/child love (Daniel and Sam), sibling love (David and Karen, Sarah and her brother), and even friendship love (Billy Mack and Joe/Chubbs). There is no self-love in this movie. There is no character solving a problem by looking after themselves. There is no character who is single and loving it; almost everyone either desperately wants romantic love or is saved by falling in love with the right person. Again, I get it, it’s a romantic movie. I’m just saying they could have explored even more in the different sorts of love that exists between people.

So did this movie age well? No, not particularly. If you are likely to be angered by any of the above listed issues, I do not recommend watching it. But, for me, this is a prime example of a movie that got under my skin when I was young and just oh so stupid and believed that being in love with another person was simple and easy and would be a solution to all life’s problems. So while I have grown to understand a lot more about such things (I’m still quite stupid, but a little less so), I will still put on this movie and enjoy it, even though I know better.

I mean, to be honest, just watching Rowan Atkinson gift wrap a present is worth the price of admission every time.