Love Actually ('03) 2003, Universal

Buy it from

A Universal release. Written and directed by Richard Curtis; starring Hugh Grant, Colin Firth, Liam Neeson, Keira Knightley, Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman. Released to DVD on April 27, 2003.

As humans, we have a genuine love of love and being loved. There is no easier sell to an audience than that of a romantic comedy. The chocolate cake of the film world, the romantic comedy takes the best and funniest moments of our lives and presents them on the silver screen. Minus political theorizing, real world complications or impoverished people, all the controversial and negative parts of life have been removed. The result is pure candy.

If there is a point of contention among film critics about the romantic comedy genre, it’s that the majority of films under that heading are abjectly light and equally shallow. Character development and original plot twists are often ignored in favor of more saccharine interchanges between the movie’s photogenic leads. Whether we’re dealing with What Women Want, The Wedding Planner or even The Wedding Singer, the movies in question have almost identical structures and formulas and twists.

This contention is something that writer/director Richard Curtis knows about all to well, having made both a career and a fortune from the genre, scripting films like Notting Hill, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Bridget Jones’ Diary and its upcoming sequel, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason. Rather than make another by-the-book romantic comedy that would be, by nature, subjected to the same critical carping about being too fluffy and simple for its own good, Curtis embraced these genre flaws and crafted an ensemble work in Love Actually with roughly ten small love stories taking place at the same time. What can impress someone as being light and shallow over 90+ minutes quickly becomes enjoyable when spread out over 15 minutes. Frankly, I would have no trouble believing that the stories that make up the core of Love Actually were all ideas that Curtis had previously had for individual projects that he couldn’t flesh out enough to turn into a viable feature length film.

Though Curtis’ directorial debut contains a shockingly similar number of elements from the other films he has been associated with (rumor has it that one of the scenes in Love Actually was cut from Four Weddings and a Funeral and re-shot for use here) including the presence of Hugh Grant in a relationship between a member of the cultural elite and an average work-a-day citizen, a view of American women as being enchanted by British men and a series of men who are surprisingly in touch with their emotions and possess the ability to confidently and immediately express their feelings to the women in their lives, Love Actually turns out to be a suitably enjoyable movie with a very likable cast, including Grant, Colin Firth, Liam Neeson, Keira Knightley, Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman, Marline McCutcheon and a host of other performers. The short truth of the matter is that there is precious little Curtis could do to unsettle the carefully crafted love stories at the heart of his project.

Granted, certain characters and situations resonated with me louder than others–Grant’s turn as British prime minister who becomes involved with a secretary was one–while others did little to pique my interest–Firth’s attempts to court a girl who doesn’t speak English didn’t sit well with me–but such is the nature of this type of film. On a whole however, it’s evident that Curtis realizes which stories are the most captivating, and he focuses more heavily on them than on the weaker ones over the course of Love Actually’s 135-minutes.

Love Actually is not without it’s faults–Curtis’ ham-handed attempts to portray the United States’ president (Billy Bob Thornton) as an arrogant, uncouth cowboy seem generally truthful but somewhat quizzically placed here in this romantic-comedy, as did the scene of the young boy breaking passed security at Heathrow Airport to inform another girl that he loves her–but the warm and downright fuzzy nature of the plot material was more than enough to change my perspective on Love Actually from that of a recycled heap of superficial tales about love into that of an entertaining ensemble yarn with one of the happiest endings in cinema history.

chris neumer

yes, it's true: Besides penning a large number of romantic-comedies, writer/director Richard Curtis also wrote the script for the feature film, Mr. Bean.