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by Sean Conover Published: October 31, 2003
So begins Universal’s “Love Actually” with a jolt, probably one of the first major films to refer to the loss of loved ones on September 11th. Thankfully, that is the only reference to the tragedy, but it sure does get your attention as the film starts. From then on, the story dives into practically every angle you can take regarding that little thing we call “love,” and it succeeds in pulling us along for the emotional ride. The story is a vignette of overlapping experiences in London during the five weeks before Christmas, including the first day of the new (and single) Prime Minister played by Hugh Grant. As he enters 10 Downing Street for the first time, he is introduced to his staff, including a very cute and flustered secretary (Martine McCutchen). The Prime Minister’s sister Karen (Emma Thompson) has her suspicions that her husband Harry (Alan Rikman) is having an affair with his secretary, which he is in fact contemplating starting. Karen is also trying to console her friend Daniel (Liam Neeson), who has just lost his wife, and has a awkward relationship with his son Sam who is having love problems of his own. Back at the office, one of Harry’s employees is Sarah (Laura Linney), who has a crush on another office worker, but is too shy to ask him out. Sarah attends the marriage of her friend Juliet (Keira Knightley) who has a strained relationship with her husband’s best friend Mark (Andrew Lincoln), but finds out it’s not because he dislikes her. At Sarah’s company’s Holiday party, one of the caterer’s crew (Colin, played by Kris Marshall) decides that English women are too stuck up, so he’s decided he’s going to America, where the women in bars are supposedly overflowing. Colin’s friend is a lighting technician for a film company, who has employed Judy and John (Joanna Page and Martin Freeman, respectively) as nude stand-ins for a sex scene (and the main reason the film has garnered an ‘R’ rating). Get all that? If not, it’s o.k. The story will pull you along, and how the relationships overlap isn’t so important as the individual stories themselves. Each vignette moves from the silliness of love games to the awkwardness of courting, ending in either success or failure, and the film’s star power generate amazingly real (and saucy) performances. One of the running jokes in the film is the marketing hell “Uncle” Billy Mack (Bill Nighy) goes through during his “comeback” song, a holiday remake of “Love is All Around,” renamed “Xmas is All Around.” Mack makes no attempt to cover that the song is crap, and publicly belittles his own song on television and radio and the fact that he’s just trying to make some money. His honesty about his intentions underlies all of the other vignettes, since they are all attempting to be honest, but when love is involved, it’s difficult to be honest, particularly to oneself. It’s similar to the difficulty of saying goodbye to the one you love, and the struggle to do “what’s right” instead of “what we feel.” The heart is hard to follow, yet Mack in his rock star wisdom, seems to be the most honest character in the film. His video plays in the background of many of the other vignettes, and keeps each one rooted in his honesty. As for the rest of the cast, their stories are also real and not insulting to either sex. The women are treated in the same manner as men, with everyone sharing the same types of feelings of insecurity in love and life. For example, The Prime Minister, even with all of his power, is still powerless when it comes to love. Even young Sam learns how tough love can be, and how much you have to work at it to even be somewhat successful. It’s refreshing to watch a story that doesn’t pander to one side or the other, one age or another, and where there’s no false modesty as to which “love” is right. In truth, as we all know (or attempt to know), there is no right or wrong in love, and “Love Actually” is a winner because it doesn’t declare any victors, only players who are still trying to interpret the playbook. If there is anywhere the film fails is that there are in fact too many stories intertwined, and the impact of some of them are lost. Hopping back and forth between these ten different love encounters loses a little in the translation. It was difficult to try and connect the dots to whom was tied to whom, and although it is not important, it was a distraction, albeit a minor one. The way at which each story is told in such an honest and amusing manner makes the film endearing and personal, since it approaches the confusing poetry of love from so many different angles. Everyone has had success and failure in love at one time or another, and at least one story will connect with each viewer in a different way. Anyone in love goes through feelings such as risk, longing, exhilaration, regret, shame, happiness, and sorrow, but in the end it’s all worth it. “Love Actually” ends up being worth it as well, and any movie that can make me smile practically the entire time I’m in a theater is actually a rarity. Overall Grade: B+ Reprinted with permission from JaxMovies.com. |
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