This was pretty high on the list of "Oh my god! You haven't seen [blah]?!" but I can now officially cross it off said list. There was of hype and potential bias going into this movie. Mostly positive hype, with the potential bias of "if all my friends liked this movie so much and I didn't, what's that say about me" (assuming I care about what others think of me and say stuff I might not agree with just to fit in with the crowd, but of course I don't do that because that would be ridiculous). But also negative hype from the cynical corners of the internet (read: everywhere) about the faux-sentimentalism. In addition, the contrarian in me wants to dislike it from start just to oppose the generally positive consensus. So I tried to clear my mind of all previous thoughts of Love Actually (which I thought was Love, Actually until literally writing this post. It's a small change, but makes a fairly big difference in the syntax. I could talk about punctuation all day, but I imagine most of you don't give a shit. #oxfordcommaforever) and watch the movie with as fresh of eyes as possible.
Well I know you are all waiting on the edge of your seat to know what I thought, and the truth is....
I actually liked it a lot (also, every time I write actually in this, it's going to seem like a cheap pun, but it almost never will be. And if it is, you will know because it will be cheesy and horrible). Certainly it is not without its issues, but it was very sweet in a lot of ways.
The issues I had and then some are laid out in this article, which I was instructed to read after viewing by a friend (shoutout to Anna Bosak). Now I think the author is off point in a number of ways, which I'll get to later, but on the whole, I think she nails a lot of key problems.
But again, let's ignore those problems and enjoy this movie for what it is. The "ultimate romantic comedy." Seriously, it says that on the poster. I'd also like to note that between the time of watching and the time of writing this, Netflix took Love Actually down. Because they apparently hate love.
Okay, no more snipes. The first thing I noticed about this movie is how nearly every British actor is in this movie. Like every single one minus Benedict Cumberbatch. But oh my god, could you imagine if Cumberbatch was in this?
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| Sploosh. |
Seriously though, nearly every scene had me saying "oh hey, it's Snape, and look, there's Bilbo! And Taken is in this?!" For the record, I don't refer to Liam Neeson as "Taken," but now I'm starting to think I should. And I know that I shouldn't be adding any more distractions, but I have two obligatory Liam Neeson videos. The first is unembeddable, but here it is.
So I could do a nice synopsis of what happens, but the above article already did that in a more satirical way than I likely would have, so I'm not gonna do it. Instead, I'm gonna talk about things I liked and didn't like in a vaguely chronological order, but no real guarantee on that.
One of the first lines that sticks out at me is the back and forth between Emma Thompson and her daughter, who has just revealed that she'll be playing a lobster in the Christmas pageant.
"The lobster?"
"Yeah!"
"In the nativity play?"
"Yeah, first lobster!"
"There was more than one lobster present at the birth of Jesus?"
"Duh!"
First of all, that's hilarious just flat out. Lobsters are inherently funny animals, and if you put one in a place it doesn't belong, it becomes instantly more funny. I realize that the previous sentence sounds inappropriate, but I promise that that was not my intention, I was thinking more along the lines of a lobster at a petting zoo, which is funny because lobsters don't fit in with the normal petting zoo animals. You know how jokes are funnier when you explain them...? But the lobster bit is also funny to me because that kind of terrible ensemble casting, of making up absurd characters, is exactly on point with nearly every public school theater production. Every child needs the opportunity to shine, even if their moment is being dressed as a crustacean while JC is born. Maybe the lobsters cut the umbilical cord. Now that part just got awesome!
That scene was also important because it established Emma's friendship with Liam with whom she had been speaking on the phone prior to her daughter's news. That phone call also revealed that Liam's wife had recently died. Some people (read: above article and commenters) are not thrilled with this storyline because Emma and Liam never explicitly state what their relationship is, though you learn at some point that their kids go to school together, so it would make sense that they at least could be friends through that. In addition, Liam begins his phone call saying that she's basically the only one he knows to call, implying good friendship (maybe more, but certainly not less). And frankly, I'm not going to get mad at a movie for not explicitly detailing their exact relationship when a) there're more than enough context clues and b) so much else in this movie is spoon-fed to the audience that I don't mind having to think about something rather than just being told.
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| "Such a youthful haircut on such an old face." -American Dad |
Also, in an interesting twist on the normal rom-com timeline, the wedding scene happens at the beginning, where like half of the characters interact from the get-go, taking away some of the fun of seeing the storylines intersect, but there's still more surprises to come. Basically, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Keira Knightley are getting married, but something is off with the best man, Andrew Lincoln, aka Rick Grimes from The Walking Dead. He's kinda standoffish and keeps recording the couple from the distance, leading someone to ask if he's in love with Chiwetel, which is interesting because he spends most of the movie dressed like Christian from Clueless, who is also gay. But no, Rick isn't in love with Chiwetel, he's in love with Keira (whose wedding dress makes her look like Queen Amidala, whom she was handmaiden and body-double for in The Phantom Menace. Everything comes full circle) of course! He even hired a surprise big band to play "All You Need is Love" at the ceremony. Which to be fair, was an awesome scene, but I'm a sucker for the Beatles and theatrics, so it was right up my alley.
Okay, back to Rick. This storyline is the one I have the biggest problem with because I don't really find his actions to be endearing and sweet, I find him to be creepy. Not right away, but the more they reveal of Rick and his feelings, the weirder he seems to get. At first, I figured, "okay, he loves his best friend's wife, not the coolest thing in the world, but you spend a lot of time together presumably, so these feelings can manifest." Then we find out that they never talk! Chiwetel goes to put her on the phone with Rick and he tells Rick to be friendly. And then when she goes to his place to get the wedding tape, she tells Rick that "you've never particularly warmed to me...we never got friendly." So Rick and Chiwetel have been best friends for the entirety of Chiwetel's and Keira's relationship, and the whole time, Rick has been a dick, presumably as a defense mechanism because he fell in love with either her looks alone or simply the idea of her, but he doesn't love the real Keira because he doesn't know her. It's just bizarre.
And obsessive, as we learn from watching his wedding footage. It's all close-ups of Keira, like a creepy amount. And they watch it together, which is how she learns that Rick is obsessed with her. Just kidding, she sees it as love. And why didn't Rick just say he had edited the video to just shots of her, since that what she had asked for in the first place? Because he's creepy. Which truly takes form with his cue card antics at the end. He basically manipulated the situation so that he could "say" all that he wanted to and she couldn't respond at all because her husband was secretly in the next room. In other words, he filibustered his own love confession. Also, what would he have done if Chiwetel had answered the door? Like "Hey Chiwe, just came by to say hey with this boombox and a butt-load of cue cards that say things you never want to hear." Or what if Chiwetel loves caroling, so when she lied to him about the carolers, he ran to the door shouting his cheer for carols? Rick sucks is basically what I'm saying. And in true suckiness fashion, this storyline is wrapped up about a half hour from the end of the movie, which means that these characters were pretty low on the importance totem pole. Here's SNL's take on the cue cards, featuring Amy Adams:
Ugh, fuck you Rick, I never wanted to spend so much time on you, but you suck so much, I had to. Look, I get that this movie is all about the various kinds of love, puppy love, love at first sight, familiar love, lust, etc, and this whole Rick storyline is the unrequited love section, but for fuck's sake, make them friends so he can fall in love her whole being, not just the idea of her.
Okay, done with Rick, and from Rick, let's go to Rickman, Alan Rickman. Another absolute treasure. In one of his first lines, he says Karl in almost the exact way he does in Die Hard, ugh, that's the stuff dreams are made of. So he seems to run some sort of whorehouse because his new secretary is throwing herself at him, literally pointing to her vagina at one point, and in his first scene, he instructs Laura Linney to bang another coworker, played by Xerxes. It's actually a disappointing role for Alan because he's married to Emma Thompson. Wait, that came out wrong, being married to Emma Thompson would be awesome, but because he indulges the fantasy of being with his secretary, although it's unclear if he ever actually does anything with her, apart from giving her a gold necklace. When I said it was a disappointing role for him, what I meant was that it's because he plays a jerk, and not a fun jerk like Snape or Hans Gruber.
His character, however, is the first to interact with Rowan Atkinson, a very special character. A writer friend of mine, Cara Rowe, posited the idea that his character adds a sprig of magical-realism to the movie. He appears as if by magic in multiple characters' stories at just the right moment to help in ways they may not realize at first. With Alan, he appears as the jewelry store workers who assists in Alan's purchase of a gold necklace for his secretary. Alan is clearly feeling unease with his decision and worries about being caught, but agrees to have the thing giftwrapped. But Rowan takes his sweet ass time in wrapping it, mixing in flowers and shit, to the point that Emma Thompson shows up and Alan abandons his ploy, but we later learn that he goes back for the necklace anyway. In other words, Rowan steered Alan away from infidelity with his opposite-of-Busta-Rhymes speed of wrapping.
His other appearance occurs at the airport in the finale, because of course if you start in an airport, you have to end in one. You see Jojen Reed, Liam Neeson's step-son, has to race through Heathrow to meet up with his love! But of course, you can't get to the gates without a boarding pass. Enter Rowan again, who seemingly unknowingly distracts the flight attendant while he searches for his pass. Again, his slow bumblings assist a character in their search for love because Jojen is able to slip past the attendant. He then runs directly to the right gate without checking a map or the departure screen, which is literally the most unbelievable part of this movie. I spent more time than I cared to in Heathrow thanks to a 4-inch "blizzard" and I can tell you that that place is a nightmare to get around, not to mention on Christmas eve. And he how'd he know what gate to go to? What if they'd switched gates, as often happens? Could not suspend disbelief.
There's like nine other storylines I didn't cover, but I'm not going to get into them because this post is obscenely long as it is. But there are two more things I want to mention, both of which have to do with people's reactions that I read online:
1. Almost every refers to the Martin Freeman storyline as the porno set. But am I wrong in saying that they're stand-ins for real actors and the movie they're working on just happens to have two or three sex scenes? I didn't think it was that confusing. Or are people on the internet satirizing a movie with a lot of sex scenes by referring to it as porn, even though it's not? Like calling Game of Thrones a porn?
2. A ton of people are legitimately angry about why a girl who only speaks Portuguese is living in France, and then why there is an entirely Portuguese speaking neighborhood also in France. And I'll admit, Portuguese immigrants are not the first group I think of when thinking of people who moved to France, but it's certainly not a crazy thought. Living in the melting pot that we do, is it that crazy to think that someone might move to a country where they don't speak the language? And is it crazier to think that if many people from the same country move to a new country that they might choose to live near one another, speaking their home tongue, and maintaining their culture? There are plenty of places in America where all the signage is in Spanish. Many cities have a "Chinatown" or a "Little Italy." Is is so crazy to think that France might have a Petit Portugal? Also, the above article talks about Aurelia as if she's sold to Colin Firth through some sort of human trafficking thing, which is absurd. It's very clear that the old lady runs a kind of full-time maid service and Aurelia is one of her newer employees. Nothing nefarious about it.
Hokay, so at the end of the day, Love Actually is a really charming and enjoyable movie. Certainly not without its flaws, but seriously, what movie isn't?
Rating on the feel-good-o-meter: 8 out of 10 hugs
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