Love Actually

"Tell her that you love her.  You've got nothing to lose and you'll always regret it if you don't"  Daniel (Liam Neeson) to Sam 

Starting last year with Atonement, I opted to start a tradition of posting romantic movies on Valentine’s Day.  So here is one about Love Actually.   Beware, spoilers are below.

There is a surprise performance of the Beatles “All You Need Is Love” during a wedding in writer/director Richard Curtis’ ensemble romance, Love Actually, which could be the theme of the film.   Love Actually is, like most of Curtis’ films, a romantic film with a lot of music.  Curtis, the writer of Four Weddings and a Funeral, and writer director of Notting Hill and About Time, favors romantic stories and here has gleefully compiled ten different stories.  Each story has some minor overlap with at least one of the others, but they all stand on their own.  Some of the stories are brief glimpses into the lives of their subjects; others are much more defined (the ones with the bigger name actors).

Curtis uses a largely British cast but there are some American roles as well.  The cast includes Hugh Grant, Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman, Colin Firth, Laura Linney, Liam Neeson, Bill Nye, Chiwotel Ejiofor, a young Keira Knightly and Andrew Lincoln, among others. 

The film has many fans and detractors.  Although I usually resist romance stories that feel manufactured, the ones that are written and cast well can work for me.  I’ve only watched the Curtis scripted Four Weddings and a Funeral once because even though it is well made, I thought Andie MacDowell was miscast and she could not sell the final scene.  In this film Curtis’ storylines vary from dramatic (Laura Linney and the Emma Thompson/ Alan Rickman stories) to outright comic (the young man who goes to Wisconsin looking to impress American girls).  One goes from dramatic (Liam Neeson mourning his wife) to more of a romantic comedy as he is enlivened by helping his stepson get a girl from school to notice him.  Curtis’ stories often are a little surreal (a movie star romances a bookshop owner, a man travels through time at will, a musician introduces the world to the Beatles’ music since almost no one else remembers them) and his witty and intelligent dialogue (“we’ll want to have sex in every room, including yours”) keep me involved.  I have heard criticisms that Love Actually is too white, which is fair though when it was released, I immediately noticed two biracial couples.  If the film were made now it would probably have more diversity and LGBT characters.  It is far superior to Gary Marshall’s similar film, Valentine’s Day, which spends about half its time on one couple getting together and only checks in on the other stories. 

I sense that Hugh Grant’s storyline was intended to be its own movie and trimmed down for this one.  We never see David discussing specific policies, have no idea which party he is in, so we do not know how well qualified he is to be Prime Minister but he certainly grows in stature as the film goes on.  The moments that address with how David tries to confront his feelings for Natalie which he knows are inappropriate are interesting.  Curtis seems to be at pains to show how one should handle this type of matter differently than Bill Clinton did.  When David asks for Natalie to be “redistributed” I interpreted that as “reassigned” to somewhere else though I think people think he had her fired.  Although the act seems cold it feels like the right move as he did not want to be tempted into doing something wrong.  

Billy Bob Thornton as the unnamed U.S. President brings a little of George W. Bush’s bullying combined with Clinton’s skirt chasing.  It’s unclear what the president is doing to Natalie but it seems to be some sort of proposition that she would be unwise to decline and he has little hesitation about David seeing it.  When David’s previous restraint turns to anger in front of the press, David calls out the president in general but without identifying what he just did, but clearly to support and defend Natalie.  Curtis does Natalie a disservice in that she never gets to explain how scary it was for her.  This is part of a larger issue in Curtis’ films in which the women are often seen only through the leading men’s eyes (Julia Roberts in Notting Hill, Rachel McAdams in About Time) and rarely have scenes without them.  If Natalie had a little more agency as a character the film could have given her time to have an honest reaction.  I think it is also a reminder to all men not to ever leave a woman alone in a room with a man like the president.  Would the president continue harassing women after this since he has been embarrassed?  Possibly but he would also recognize that his overall bullying has been called out publicly and he might think twice about doing so in the future.

The most interesting storyline to me is the one involving Emma Thompson and the late Alan Rickman’s characters as Harry and Karen.  The actors’ comfort with each other, having worked together in Sense and Sensibility and The Winter Guest (the latter of which I have not seen) makes it easy to believe they have been married for many years.  Harry’s temptation by his employee, Mia, proves dangerous to his marriage and though it is not stated, could also be for his career. Curtis pulls a similar trick in the department story as Hitchcock does in turning the audience into co-conspirators as we do not want Karen to catch Harry trying to buy the necklace (though he could easily claim it is for her).  Rowan Atkinson has a lot of fun with this character deliberately finding new ways to extend wrapping the gift.  I have read that some consider Atkinson to be an angel trying to lead Harry from temptation, which is represented by Mia’s sexy devilish outfit at the party.    

When I first saw the film after Harry steps away from the counter, I assumed that would be the end of his attempts to buy it as he had a sense of how dangerous an extramarital affair can be.  However, we then would have been robbed of the devastating scene in which Karen realizes that Harry has bought a necklace for someone else.  Thompson is brilliant in the steps in which Karen excuses herself recognizing she needs to be alone, goes to her room to listen to the music that this same husband who betrayed her  well had bought her, and then act as if all is normal and waits for the appropriate time to confront Harry.  Curtis never shows us Harry giving the necklace to Mia nor explicitly says if he went to bed with her, though clearly Mia had invited him to do so if he bought it for her.  But it is also not necessary since the point is what Harry’s attraction to Mia does to his marriage.  I do wish the film developed Mia a little more as she just seems like a cruel, if sexy, homewrecker.  Mia’s friend Mark is also in love with a married person but is trying to control his impulses far more.

Mark and Juliet’s story of unrequited love is one of the more touching although it is given much less screen time than some of the others, perhaps since none of the actors in it were as well known when  the film was made.  Curtis has fun setting it up Mark as a good friend to Peter who people wrongly suspect is in love with him.  The buildup to the moment in which Juliet watches the video and sees that it focuses turns from an awkward situation (Juliet really wants Mark to like her but cannot break through to him) to a more painful one as she realizes why.  Knightly has to play confusion and being moved while Andrew Lincoln expertly portrays his embarrassment as he never expected anyone to see the video.  Mark does not want to hurt his friendship with Peter or feel frustrated by being so close to Juliet.  Curtis gives Mark a release when he runs outside in the cold without a jacket to the tune of “Here With Me,”; I think anyone who has ever felt that type of embarrassment can relate to his feelings there. 

This storyline has been criticized Mark of engaging in stalker behavior.  I think the argument has some merit, but it is not presented that way in the film.  Curtis is trying to portray Mark’s feelings using a visual medium.  In the film all Mark does is take the video which is a little unsettling but appears to just be a crush and he is trying to keep away from them Juliet to avoid the temptation.  The question I would have is did he lay the Craig Armstrong score into the video or are just we in the audience hearing it?  The moment where he appears with the sandwich boards is creative, romantic and poignant (and the use of "Silent Night", my favorite Christmas carol, give the scene an extra kick).  Mark is not trying to woo Juliet but is just expressing his feelings in the holiday spirit.  When Juliet kisses Mark, I think it is her way of returning a little gesture and thanking him for holding back, though it would have been a little more tasteful if she had just kissed him on the cheek.  I admire that right afterwards Mark seems to decide that it is out of his system and he needs to let go.  This also clarifies to the audience that despite the kiss there is not going to be an affair.  It seems clear that Juliet has not told Peter about any of this though the film might have been helped if there was a scene in which Juliet came home from Mark’s and was indecisive about whether to tell Peter about Mark’s crush on her. 

The superb Laura Linney seems to have the market cornered on stories with women whose lives are impacted by close relationships with troubled brothers.  “You Can Count On Me” and “Ozark” have some similar beats but her brother in “Love Actually” seems to suffer the most from his illness.  We see little of the brother, but the story is told through Linney’s character Sarah’s sadness.  Sarah is ridden with guilt over her brother’s illness and cannot create a life of her own.  This is exemplified in the way she constantly takes his calls, which also makes me wonder how she is able to have any kind of career unless the facility he is in only lets him call during certain hours.  Sarah seems to be carrying his burden though in the short sequel Curtis filmed years later Sarah is in a happy relationship so perhaps the brother is better or has passed away.  Nonetheless I love the little moment in which she brings home Karl, played by Rodrigo Santoro and she does a happy dance out of his sight showing how much she needed this moment.

Colin Firth stays away from the Hugh Grant storyline which prevents them from having another comic fight as in the Bridget Jones movies.  The two actors seem to have some kind of fake rivalry like Matt Damon and Jimmy Kimmel as they constantly speak badly about each other interviews and if you listen to the DVD commentary of this film Grant pokes fun at Firth every time he shows up.

I digress, Colin Firth’s story is perhaps the most fantastical on paper but he bring so much soul as the heartbroken and disheveled novelist Jamie that he makes it work.  This story, set largely in a different country than the rest of the film, might have been scripted as a full feature but it probably is better in short form.  Siena Guillory is luminous as Aurelia.  She is attractive with a warm smile but feels like a real person, which also helps sell the story.  Curtis has a lot of fun with Jamie and Aurelia’s lines in two different languages as they do not understand each other at all.  Aurelia is a lot wittier than Jamie realizes and the scene in which they both jump in the water to save his pages is really funny.  Firth, who is such an intelligent actor, can play hapless quite believably.

Curtis only touches on the class differences which seem to be of no concern to either Aurelia or Jamie.  I wonder why Aurelia needs to come every day to clean unless Jamie is a complete slob.  The moment in which Jamie comes home to his family and sees his brother (whose affair with Jamie’s girlfriend ruined that relationship) spurs him to go after this new life.  To Jamie’s credit, he is too kind a person to beat up his brother.  He simply goes away from him and impulsively goes after Aurelia, leading to the last big scene of the film.  Curtis builds it up with a procession for Jamie to make his proposal.  Firth makes this apparently unlikely Romeo and Juliet like scene with Aurelia scene work with his funny stumbling in his second language.  The final line captures Jamie’s momentary self-consciousness of the gesture but is relieved when Aurelia speaks to him in English and reveals she feels the same way, which was never really in doubt.

Curtis’ film About Time focuses on a father son love story and Daniel and Sam’s section of Love Actually seems like a precursor.  Liam Neeson- plays so many dark tough characters it is nice to see him play a nice man who processes his grief by helping his step son deal with the loss of his mom by finding love.  Daniel is just supportive and encouraging and I love the moment in which he tells Sam to go after Joanna.  I love the touch of Daniel constantly fantasizing about meeting Claudia Schiffer to only meet a single mother woman named Carol played by Claudia Schiffer.  Only in the movies. 

Sam’s run through the airport works as a fanciful romantic gesture though truly post 9/11 the idea of someone racing past security in an airport should be scary.  Amazingly not only does security not only escort Sam outside without any real repercussions but Joanna comes back to give him a kiss after her flight had made the last call for everyone to get on board.  However, this is quickly forgotten as Sam’s response is to give Daniel a big cathartic hug.

The pieces with Billy Mack, played by William Nighy, are fun, as a politically incorrect over the hill rocker.  The scenes do not make a lot of sense (Billy appears on TV at a point when he is supposed to be with his manager) but it is enjoyable.  Billy is the film’s wildcard, you never what he is going to do or where he will turn up.  Notably the song he is turning into his Christmas hit, Love is All Around Us, is the theme from four Weddings and a Funeral.

Kris Marshall completely commits to the zany Colin, who goes to Wisconsin looking for sex with American girls and amazingly finds it almost as soon as he arrives.  Curtis is wise not to spend too much time on this nutty story as the more you think about it, the less it works.  As a fan of 24 I enjoyed seeing Elisha Cuthbert, who played Kim on the show in her one scene.

Craig Armstrong contributes a wistful score, done mainly on the piano.  His main melody is memorable, and as usual is easy to remember, as are his themes for The Incredible Hulk and Romeo and Juliet.  Curtis also uses a lot of good songs, such as Jump by The Pointer Sisters,  God Only Knows by The Beach Boys, and a version of All I Want for Christmas by Tessa Niles who plays Joanna.

Ultimately, Love Actually is an entertaining group of stories.  It is not right if you are in a cynical mood but as I discovered it made for a great first date movie when I took my wife to see it on ours.  ****.